Stardust
by Lunar Resonance
Summary: As a witch's apprentice and the son of a human lord, Maka and Soul's friendship is unlikely but strong. However, disaster strikes when war erupts between their people. In the final battle, Soul makes the ultimate sacrifice for Maka and is inflicted with a terrible curse on his future lives. Reeling in grief, Maka decides to use her powers to follow Soul and save him from the curse.
1. Part 1-1

10 years old

* * *

The forest does not whisper with life as Soul plods through mounds of fallen leaves and wends his way through the trees. A deathly quiet hums in his bones instead, beating in time with the soft tramp of his feet.

In some corner of his mind that isn't preoccupied by the broken wooden thing clutched in his hands, he supposes it is because of the witches' presence at his father's castle. After all, witches were said to be creations against nature and it's been over five hundred years since so many witches were gathered in one place.

From behind, something snaps with a loud pop and Soul whirls around, heart flying to his throat. His eyes dart from side to side, the tension coiling in his body drains away when he spies nothing. Soul listens carefully to the forest before he resumes walking-the thought of running into a witch sends fear fluttering down his veins but somewhere underneath it beats a tiny flicker of curiosity he hasn't been able to shake since the witches arrived seven days ago. Meanwhile, his father hadn't been pleased at all about being chosen as host of the treaty renewal between the witches and the kingdom of Eibon but there hadn't been anything he'd been able to do about it; Lord Evans had plastered on his most serene smile as preparations for the witches' arrival were made but as the first of the witches' assembly arrived, he had pressed a ring of iron into Wes and Soul's palms.

Soul had opened his mouth as his fingers wrapped around the ring, painted a shiny gold, but Wes had nudged him before he could say anything. In a loud voice, their father had said, "Make me proud," before moving to greet the wizened old witch leading the approaching assembly through the courtyard.

At that, Wes had nodded enthusiastically; Soul had nodded too but it had been his older brother their father had been looking at.

The faint gong of the village cathedral's bell reverberates in the distance and shakes him out of his thoughts; panic comes alive in his chest, tangling his feet together. Soul rights himself as he trips forward and and quickens his pace.

He refuses to look down at his hands until he reaches the clearing and settles in his spot beneath the tree standing in its center. Breathing in deeply, Soul closes his eyes and leans back against the tree's trunk. The glade with a single oak tree in its middle was something he had stumbled upon by accident but it had quickly transformed into his refuge when he could no longer stand the veiled comparisons to his brother from his music instructor and the rest of his tutors.

A dull ache in his palms brings him back to the present and he stares at the violin held tightly in his hands, its broken neck hanging limply towards the ground while its strings pathetically curl skyward.

Tiny rapid puffs of breath escape from his lips and stains the crisp, clear winter air as Soul wraps his finger around one of the strings and tries to smooth it flat. The string straightens for an instant before winding itself into an even angrier and uglier twist of curls.

Soul's heart floods icy dread through his body; there were few things he found worse than being forced to repeat a song and enduring his music instructor's criticisms for hours on end but that was before going through a week of being paraded around like a trophy from daybreak to well into the night. Wes had done his best to buffer Soul from the small mob of ambassadors and courtiers that clung to them wherever they went but the buzz of the ever-present crowd had quickly turned into fingernails dragging their way down Soul's eardrums over and over. By some miracle, the week-long treaty conference had gone by without a single incident; it was clearly a sign that was disaster was overdue but instead Soul had thought the opposite.

He moves his gaze to the neck of the violin, only attached to the violin's body by a few splinters, and grits his teeth. All he'd wanted was to practice his piece for the farewell banquet one last time-he hadn't realized Wes had left his violin on the piano seat until he heard the crunch.

Glancing at the sun high in the sky, a slightly nauseous feeling bubbles in his stomach-there wasn't another violin that was suitable enough for Wes to use at the banquet and his performance was something his father had been boasting about for days now. Soul swallows-in a few hours, everyone would know as well as he did about how badly he could make a mess of things.

A snapping sound from above cuts Soul away from the panic erupting in his chest and he looks up to see a pair of green eyes staring back at him.

The girl sitting on the tree branch gazes at Soul for another moment. There is a faintly unearthly glow to her eyes as they trace across his face. "Hello."

Soul continues to stare.

"My name is Maka," she says when Soul doesn't reply. One of her front teeth is missing and her words come out in a slight lisp. "I'm a witch's apprentice."

This does prompt a response from Soul. "All of the witches I've seen are old crones," he says. "And have wrinkles and grey hair."

"Disguises." Maka answers, rolling her eyes. "It's not safe for a witch to be traveling when her powers aren't fully realized."

"I didn't know witches age." Soul forgets the broken violin in his hands. "I thought they were made immortal."

"Humans really don't get much right about witches, do they?" Maka says. She swings her legs forward and jumps down, landing on the ground with more grace than a normal person would. "Witches are born, not made."

Everything his father and tutors had ever told him about witches spins in Soul's head, colliding and clashing with Maka's words. "How?"

"Same as you," Maka answers matter-of-factly as she takes a seat in front of him and crosses her legs. Golden stars dangle from the tassels on the hem of her shirt and splay over her skirt while tiny winged crescent moons hold her hair in two neat pigtails. "My mama is a witch and my papa is a normal human."

Soul glances at the space between them. A voice that sounds like his father prods at him from the back of his mind to leave, but instead he leans forward after a pause. "Did you come with your mother?"

"No." The glow in Maka's eyes dims and her gaze moves to the ground. "She left." There is a beat of silence. "I live with one of the other witches now."

Maka's silence between her words and the slight hunching of her shoulders tells Soul not to question it any further. He eyes the wings capping her shirt at her shoulders. They're fluttering, even though there isn't even the faintest whisper of a breeze. "What do you like most about magic?"

Maka blinks and her gaze shifts back to Soul's face. She winds a lock of hair around her finger as she thinks. "Mastering a new spell is nice," she says. "Mabaa says magic is like taking the energy of the universe and turning it into something else so I like it when my magic is useful."

Soul nods, even though he doesn't understand completely. Magic was something he had been warned away from since he could talk, had only been whispered about in hushed tones, had been called unnatural and evil.

He frowns. Maka doesn't seem unnatural or evil.

"Your brother's violin, for example." Maka doesn't seem to notice that he's wandered off with his thoughts. She points at it. "I could fix it."

"My brother's violin?" he repeats. It takes Soul a moment to register her words. "Wait." He eyes her suspiciously. "How did you know this was my brother's?"

"After spending a week here, it's hard not to know who you or your brother are," she answers. "Should I call you Lord Soul?"

He cringes. "Only if you want me to throw up."

"No, thank you." Maka reaches out a hand. "Do you want me to fix the violin or not?"

Soul hesitates for a fraction of a second before holding out the violin.

Maka's eyebrows furrow as she turns the violin over in her hands. "What were you planning to do with it?" she asks interestedly. "Bury it?"

"I'm not sure," Soul lies. He watches as she continues to twist the violin over and over again. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find the break," she says.

His eyebrows lift in confusion and he points at the neck of the violin. "It's right there, isn't it?"

"Physically, yes," Maka answers, bringing the violin closer to her face. "But sometimes the real break is somewhere else." She pokes at a spot that looks intact to Soul. "Though that's only with people, usually."

She is quiet for another moment before she nods to herself. "Here."

Soul cranes his head to see where she's pointing at. "I don't see anything."

"Just watch." Maka lays the violin flat in her hands and closes her eyes.

Soul waits. And waits.

The violin stays as broken as ever.

Soul waits another minute before clearing his throat. "Um, is something supposed to happen?"

Maka opens her eyes and scowls at him. "Obviously!" An embarrassed blush in her cheeks dims the burn of her glare. "I just need time to concentrate, that's all."

"Should I turn around?"

"No!"

Maka takes a deep breath. Her eyes have a brighter glow to them and her grip on the violin is tight. "Just wait and watch, okay?"

There's a fiercely determined expression on her face that makes it impossible to say no. "All right," he says.

Inhaling sharply, she closes her eyes again. This time, after a few moments, a stillness creeps into the air that sinks into Soul's bones, simultaneously featherlight and heavy as a boulder; it's accompanied by a heavy silence that hovers between unsettling and uncomfortable.

Soul tries not to squirm-it's like the fabric of the universe has unspooled itself a bit and draped itself on his shoulders. Maka's words from earlier make more sense now; he has to fight to keep from jumping to his feet the longer the feeling pushes against his body.

Abruptly, the heaviness disappears and Soul feels a swooping sensation in the pit of his stomach.

"There!"

A bright smile spreads across Maka's face as she extends a newly mended and fully playable violin to Soul.

Taking it, Soul stares at the violin, then up to Maka, and back down again in disbelief. "It's fixed."

"That was the goal." There's a nervous edge to her voice that makes him look up. "And also the first time I showed someone my magic," she adds, not quite meeting Soul's eyes.

Maka fiddles with the tip of one of her pigtails and shifts to sit on her knees. She still wears the small smile from before but an anxiousness dances beneath her expression. "What did you think?"

Soul moves his gaze to the violin and then back to Maka.

"I think it's amazing." He struggles to find something else to say than thank you but his mind proves itself a traitor once again, going completely blank. "Thank you," he says lamely after a minute.

The grin Maka gives him is beaming, however. "I'm glad to have helped."

"What else do you like?" The question leaves Soul's mouth before he can think twice about it.

Maka blinks in surprise but her expression grows thoughtful. "Well, I like fairy tales," she answers. "I love the ones where the princess and the dragon become friends."

Soul lays the violin down carefully in his lap. "I've never read any fairy tales like those."

"They get to be friends all the time in the books I read," Maka says excitedly. She scrambles to her feet and climbs up the tree, retrieving a bag that Soul hadn't noticed before.

Reaching in, she pulls out a book whose covers shines with colors Soul has never seen before. The book seems to whisper as Maka opens up to an illustration of a mermaid floating up and down the page. "Do you want to hear one?"

Soul tears his eyes away from the mermaid, now waving at him. "Huh?"

Maka waves the book impatiently. "Do you want to hear a story?"

Briefly, Soul thinks of the lunch he's supposed to be attending before meeting Maka's eyes and shrugging internally; he's not Wes so his father won't yell at him too much, if at all. "Yes."

He settles back against the trunk of the tree and watches the way Maka's hands come alive as she launches into her story.

* * *

Soul's stomach rumbles loudly just as Maka pauses to turn the page in her recounting of the alternate version of Jack and the Giant Beanstalk.

"Oh." She lowers the book, lifted high above her head to show off the tiny talks growing from the letters of the page. A guilty look comes across her face, cheeks reddening slightly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was so late."

"It's okay, I'm fine." Soul shakes his head as his stomach gives another impatient growl.

"I think your stomach would disagree." She rises to her feet in one fluid movement, dusting off her skirt. "Mine does too."

"Lunch is over by now." He glances at the sun, which has crawled high overhead, and stands anyways, cradling the violin carefully in his arms. Wes' performance wasn't until late in the afternoon but he needed time to sneak the violin back into the recital hall.

"Maybe we can sneak something from the kitchen." Maka tucks the book under her arm and starts to walk across the clearing, Soul falling in step with her.

He snorts. "They guard the kitchen better than anywhere else in the castle."

"Even us?" Maka asks as they leave the clearing. She peeks at Soul, pushing a branch out of the way. A strange tone enters her voice, as if she remembered something suddenly. "We noticed, you know."

A mixture of guilt and shame stirs to life in Soul's chest. "Noticed what?"

"Don't pretend you don't see it." Something between hurt and anger lines her words. Dead leaves crackle underneath their feet as Maka quickens her step and stays slightly ahead of Soul. "Did you really need a small army to greet us when we arrived?"

The shame burrows itself deeper in Soul's heart. He's quiet as he twists the thin band of iron on his finger, forgotten until now. Had Maka seen it and recognized it for what it was?

He opens his mouth and closes it. There's not much he can say that isn't a blatant lie or too hurtful so he decides on a vague truth. "My father is extremely wary of witches." He tacks on a half-lie. "He doesn't mean to offend you."

His words sound false even to his ears. Maka makes a skeptical noise at the back of her throat and glances back towards Soul, not quite meeting his eyes. "This is why we need a treaty renewal every two years," she says. "Less land and _more_ restrictions every time." She starts walking fast enough to break into a slow jog. "And it's why witches have to live away from humans."

The guilt from before pricks at Soul's throat-his father had always treated the treaty as a formality and he had assumed it was nothing more but saying so won't help. "I'm sorry."

There's a small "hmph" from Maka and nothing else.

"It would be nice if you lived closer. If we could see each other more often." Once again, the words leave Soul's lips before he can think about them. "I would like it."

Maka pauses abruptly and Soul nearly crashes into her. She turns her head to look at him and the sharpness of the glow in her eyes dims. "Well," she says finally, a ghost of her smile appearing on her lips, "That makes this morning good news."

He blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear any part of the treaty announcement at all?" she asks, frowning. "About the changes in the treaty?"

"Ah." Soul scratches the back of his head, mind filled with flashbacks of dozing against the pillar he'd been standing next to and being nudged awake by Wes too many times to count. He clears his throat. "I may have been sleeping."

The eye roll Maka gives him is reminiscent of his brother. "There were lots of changes," she says. "But what matters is that a pair of witches will join every lord and lady's household." She begins to walk again, scooting over on the path so they can walk side by side. A finger curls around her pigtail. "For your father, it's me and my mentor."

For several moments, there is nothing but the sound of their footsteps and the soft rasp of wind whispering down from the sky.

"So you're going to be living here?" Soul finally asks.

"Looks like it." From the corner of his eye, he can see Maka looking over at him. "The forest will be a good place to practice my magic."

Soul starts to nod before he stops in his tracks. "Wait a second." He points a finger at Maka. "Was us running into each other really an accident?"

A guilty expression flashes across her face and realization hits him in a lightning flash. "You were that sound I heard when I was walking!"

Maka crosses her arms, refusing to look at Soul. "Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe yes?" Maka answers. Her cheeks have turned red again. "I wanted to see what you were like," she says defensively. "I was curious."

It's Soul's turn to roll his eyes. "You chose the wrong brother." He shakes his head as they start to walk again, the trees slowly thinning out. "Wes is more interesting."

"That's not what I think."

When people have given Soul similar comments, the lie usually hangs heavy in their eyes. It's something he's grown used to, being the second son of a lord who doesn't embody what it means to be nobility.

When he looks at Maka, all he sees is honesty.

The sarcastic reply he has primed for these situations dies on his lips. He moves his gaze back to the trail as the ground starts to slope downhill. "How did you know where I would end up?"

"Perception," Maka replies brightly. "It's a type of magic," she adds at Soul's confused expression. She plays with one of the stars hanging from her shirt. "I could show you how it works tomorrow, if you want."

Soul doesn't answer right away as they exit the forest, castle coming into view. Even though they're far away, he can still spy the guards crawling back and forth like ants on the outside balconies of the castle. The familiar dread at returning he feels every time he visits the forest is absent, however.

"Yes," he says, glancing at Maka. There is a light and an ease in spending time with Maka, even though they had just met. "I would like that."

The smile Maka gives him is dazzling.

* * *

Like everything in Soul's life, something goes wrong. In this case, it is spying his brother waiting outside of the recital hall as he and Maka round the corner to the theater's entrance. Wes spots them almost immediately, calling out to Soul as he pulls Maka back and tries to meld into the stone wall. "Ah, there you are, little brother."

Soul hastily shoves the violin behind his back and levels a glare at Wes, though the anxious crack in his voice breaks his facade. "What are you doing here?"

"Is that how you greet your favorite brother?" Wes places a hand on his chest in mock hurt as he approaches the two. "I'm wounded, Soul."

"You're my only brother." Soul shrugs out of the way as Wes reaches out to ruffle his hair. "There's no one else to be favorite."

"Even more reason why you should cherish me." Wes turns his gaze to Maka, who is eyeing him with a nervous curiosity, and gives her a gracious smile. "And who is this?"

"Maka," she answers quickly, stepping forward. "I'm a-"

"She's a friend," Soul cuts in.

"A friend?" Wes lifts his eyebrows, smile spreading wider as he looks at Maka. "That's rare."

"Shut up." Soul glances at Maka-Wes doesn't sneer down on magic like so many of the other nobles do but he is the kind of person to barrel someone down with a million questions when something captures his attention. "And you didn't answer my question, why are you here?"

To his surprise, Wes doesn't push the subject. "Well, as it _just_ so happens, I came here earlier because I wanted to practice by myself for a while," he says, smoothing out an invisible wrinkle from his sleeve. "And just as I was walking around the corner, someone came bursting out of the hall, a rather woefully broken violin in hand." A knowing gleam enters his eyes. "Any idea who that might have been?"

Soul flushes red but stubbornness than blood runs thicker in his veins. " _I_ think you're asking the wrong person."

Wes taps his chin thoughtfully. "You're right, actually." He turns to Maka. "Are you the talented young witch that fixed my violin?"

Soul chokes and Maka lets out a soft gasp. She recovers first, scrutinizing Wes with a bewildered expression. "I was in disguise this morning," she says. "How did you know I'm a witch?"

"It certainly wasn't my little brother who fixed my violin," Wes answers. "Though he does look like he has some warlock blood in him."

"It's called albinism." Soul jabs a finger at Wes before looking at Maka and adding quickly, "Not that there is anything wrong with being a warlock."

Maka shrugs. "Warlocks got killed off a long time ago." She nods towards Soul's arm. "Gave yourself away."

He follows her gaze to where he points accusingly at Wes, violin in hand. "Oh."

"Indeed." Wes pulls out a hunk of bread from his sleeve. "This was all I was able to smuggle out but since I can hear your stomachs from here, I don't think you'll mind."

"Here." Soul shoves the violin in Wes' hand and snatches the bread from the other, ripping it in half and giving the bigger piece to Maka. "Now you can have your practice time unless you want to gloat some more."

"Father is livid," Wes informs Soul, unperturbed. "He'd be looking for you himself if I hadn't told him you were stuck in the privy with the most unfortunate stomachache."

The tips of Soul's ears burn with embarrassment as Maka chokes back a giggle. "Am I supposed to thank you for that?"

"Considering that I risked my own skin to cover for my beloved little brother, yes."

"Well, I'm not."

Wes moves too quickly for Soul to dodge his hair-ruffling this time. "One day you'll properly appreciate me."

Soul bites back a snort and steps back to stand next to Maka, a blush still burning in his face. "Sorry," he mutters to her.

"Don't be," she says in a voice muffled by the bread in her mouth. She swallows. "I'd love to have a sibling."

"You're an only child?" Wes asks interestedly. "Tell me more about yourself, it's not often Soul brings a friend home."

Maka opens her mouth just as a bell rings from somewhere in the castle. She starts and looks up, eyebrows creasing together. "It's later than I thought."

"Do you have to go?" There's a small pang in Soul's chest as he asks, which surprises him since there are few people he feels comfortable with and even fewer that he likes being around.

"I should," Maka answers, beginning to drift away. "Mabaa will start looking for me if I don't re-appear soon." She hesitates, glancing at Wes before asking Soul, "Should we meet tomorrow in the same place as last time?"

Soul nods. "Same time too."

"All right." Maka takes a few steps backwards before she moves close to Soul again, pressing her book in his hands. "Show me which story you like best tomorrow, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, Maka dashes off, sparing a look back and a wave as she turns around the corner.

Soul feels a prod on his shoulder and looks to see Wes wearing a smirk that never promises anything good. "You like this Maka, don't you?"

"I called her a friend, didn't I?" He scowls and walks away before Wes can tease him about the blush rising in his cheeks.

"Yes, but I've never met someone who could make you smile so quickly after meeting them."

He throws the darkest glare he can muster at Wes. "I was not smiling."

"Your lips were curved upwards and that, little brother, is what a smile is."

Soul doesn't answer but he does ask a question that has been picking at his mind since he and Maka ran into Wes. "Do you think Father will be mad?"

Wes lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "It should only help that the witch's apprentice is your friend but you know how Father is," he says. He nudges Soul with his elbow. "I'll take your side, though."

"Thanks." Soul rolls his eyes but returns the nudge. "And," he says after a moment of silence, "Thank you for today."

He bears Wes' hair-ruffling with more grace this time. "What are older brothers for?"

They've nearly reached the entrance hall when Wes asks, "So now that you have a friend, should I tell her about the time you saw a horse and cried because you thought it was a dragon?"

Soul snorts as he pulls open the door to the entrance hall. "If you do that, your violin breaking won't be an accident next time."

* * *

14 years old

* * *

"I've never seen you up so early."

Wes' laugh weaves through the air as Soul skids to a halt and chokes back a startled yelp on the last of the castle steps, arms windmilling wildly as he fights to keep his balance.

The rising sun produces a glare so sharp that it turns the one Soul aims at his brother lounging on the grass beside the stairs into a useless squint. He settles for a scowl instead. "And I've never seen you so lazy."

"It's tactical practice for my men." Wes yawns, sliding his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. "I hide and they test their detection skills."

Morning mist clings to Soul's skin as he steps off the stairs and stands over his brother. "Do they know that they're supposed to be looking for you?"

"Now where would be the fun in that?"

Soul snorts, reaching down to tug at a loose lace in his boot. "You might want to find a better hiding spot than out in the open then."

Wes wags a finger at him without opening his eyes. "And yet you will notice I haven't been found."

"Fair enough." Soul glances at the pinkening sky. Maka would be sneaking out too by now. "I'm leaving."

"Wait." Soul nearly trips faceforward as Wes grabs his ankle. "What is that?"

"What is _what?_ " He follows where Wes is pointing and his gaze falls on the necklace in his hand. Soul rapidly curses himself, his bad luck, and Wes' uncanny ability to notice everything. "It's nothing."

"Just like your absences at lunch and dinner are nothing." Wes is completely awake now. He sits up, eyes sparkling with a teasing amusement he reserves solely for Soul, something he is unsure he's grateful for or not. "You remain a terrible liar, little brother."

"And you remain too nosy for your own good," Soul retorts.

It does nothing to keep the embarrassment from rising in his cheeks nor the smug grin that spreads across Wes' face. "Is it for Maka?"

Soul briefly considers burying himself in the earth.

"It is." Wes doesn't wait for Soul's answer or his permission to snatch the necklace out of his hand. The jade green glass catches the light as he twists it back and forth. "What is this supposed to be?"

"You're going to break it." Soul plucks the necklace from Wes. "And Sid said I'm banned from using the kiln anymore."

"Oh, so you made it yourself?" Wes clamps down on this information the same way a dog bites a bone. "How sweet."

"One more word and I'll switch out all the sugar cubes you put in your tea for salt ones."

"All right, all right." Lifting his arms in mock surrender, Wes stands and begins to brush off the strands of grass clinging to his pants. "I'm sure Maka will love having a green moon around her neck."

He looks up when Soul doesn't answer. "What?"

"It's not a moon." He pulls out the necklace from his pocket and stares down at it, shoulders sagging.

Wes' eyes widen for an instant before he claps a hand on Soul's shoulder. "I was always terrible at artistic interpretation and I'm still half asleep." He peers down at the necklace lying in Soul's palm, silent for several moments before finally asking, "So what is it?"

"A soul," answers Soul glumly.

"A soul," Wes repeats.

"Maka can see them." Soul fights the urge to throw the necklace into the bushes, shoving it back in his pocket. "She described them to me once."

"And they're so round and squishy?"

"That's what she told me." He shrugs off Wes' hand; the slippery nervousness that lives underneath his skin made a home in the pit of his stomach after he finished the necklace three days ago and Wes' reaction turns what little confidence he had into dust. "I didn't exactly have much else to work with."

"You accomplished your goal, then," Wes says brightly. "I'm sure Maka will love it."

Soul bats his words away, turning away from Wes to face the forest. "She's going to laugh when she sees it. I'm going to look like a fool."

"We're only willing to look like fools around people we care about." The joking lilt in Wes' voice is absent. "And the people who care back love us because of it."

"Is that why you put up with me?" The question slips out of Soul's mouth in the same way his dreams meld into nightmares.

The immediate reproach that follows his moments of self-deprecation does not come; Soul doesn't dare to look directly at Wes but he does watch how he shifts out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't put up with someone you love," Wes says finally. "At least that's what I think." He doesn't reach out to touch Soul when he remains silent but his tone softens. "It's not how good it looks but that you made it that's important," he says. "And I think that says more than any other gift you could have bought."

Soul feels for the necklace in his pocket as he thinks, turning the cool glass in his hand. "How do I give it to her?"

"In her hand, usually." Wes smiles sunnily at the scowl Soul shoots him before shrugging. "Make up an excuse. Is her birthday soon?"

"That was months ago."

He scratches the back of his neck. "No witch holidays coming up?"

"None that I know of."

"Looks like you're stuck with admitting your feelings then."

The scowl deepens. "Shut up."

Wes blinks innocently at Soul. "I was only talking about friendship feelings, I don't know what _you_ were thinking of."

"Like you don't tease enough about it," Soul grumbles. He shakes his head and faces him. With Wes beginning to spend more and more time training to take over their father's place, it isn't often that he and Soul are alone. Something tightens in his chest and he doesn't quite meet Wes' eyes as he tacks on, "Thanks for the help."

"Anything for my little brother." Wes gives his hair a light ruffle, ignores his frown and sits back down on the grass, stretching out his arms and legs and closing his eyes. "You can pay me back by telling me how it goes."

Soul gives Wes an eye roll he doesn't see. "Have fun with tactical practice."

"You never saw me and I never saw you." Wes gives him a lazy wave and Soul hesitates for another second before he starts to head down to the treeline.

The forest hums with the song of wildlife as Soul treks through the forest, the summer sun beating down mercilessly at his neck, but by the time he enters the clearing, the comfort from Wes' words has evaporated.

"There you are." Maka is sitting underneath the oak tree already. Light dances on her fingertips, shimmering with an incandescence that reminds him of starlight. "I thought you had gotten lost."

"You just want to get even for the time _you_ got lost," Soul answers as he takes a seat next to her.

Maka responds by blowing the light off her fingers. The light transforms into two tiny figures; they swirl and spin around each other in a short-lived waltz before they dance into Soul's face.

"Mature."

"Says the person who called my ankles fat for taking the last of the crumpets."

"I'm a different person now."

"That was three days ago." Maka throws him an amused glare as she waggles her fingers and the last sparks of her light flicks onto Soul; where they fall on his skin blooms a soft and contented warmth that he feels less and less these days.

"People change in less time."

She gives a skeptical hum in reply and Soul leans back against the tree as they lapse into a comfortable silence. It's a calculated move because he is anything but relaxed; the necklace weighs heavy in his pocket, burning a hole in his pants and turning his palms sweaty.

For a moment, he toys with the idea of forgetting about the plan entirely before a voice reminiscent of Wes reproves him from the back of his mind and he sucks in a breath, heart thrumming like a drum in his chest.

Beside him, Maka notices nothing, nose in a book she produced out of nowhere. She turns her page seven times in the time it takes Soul to muster the courage to open his mouth; his mind goes blank the first time, his words stick in his throat the second time, and he accidentally bites his tongue the third time.

Maka snaps shut her book shut the fourth time Soul opens his mouth. "Mabaa is leaving and I'm going with her.."

The carefully prepared words perched on his tongue fly out of his head. "What?"

"Not forever," she clarifies, putting the book to the side. A frown pulls at the corners of her mouth. "Only for a few weeks."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "Your father met with Mabaa a few days ago but she wouldn't let me stay for the meeting and she refused to tell me anything afterwards."

"That didn't stop you from eavesdropping though."

"It's not eavesdropping if I was already in the area." A guilty look creeping into her eyes ruins her scowl.

"And?"

"There wasn't much I could make out," Maka sighs, settling back against the tree trunk. "All I heard was something about the treaty renewal getting delayed. She wants to go back."

"The treaty got delayed last year," Soul points out.

"But that was because one of the witches got sick and couldn't come out to sign it," she counters. "There's no reason for it this year."

Soul moves from looking at the meadow to Maka and the finger she loops and hooks around a lock of her hair. "Something else is wrong."

Maka bites her lip instead of denying it. "I don't know if it is wrong exactly," she says slowly. "It's just...off."

"How?"

"My magic is maturing," she starts. "It means I can do more like sensing the magic of other witches. And because of my perception, I can see it too, like the sky." She gestures upwards and her gaze fixes on something that Soul can't see. "It changes color often but it always returns to blue eventually."

"It's turning grey," she says after a moment. "And it feels heavy."

"But maybe it always fluctuates at this time of year, even the witches who support the treaty hate signing it." The words burst out of her just as Soul begins to speak. Her shoulders sag. "I don't know."

Soul is quiet. The treaty was the result of a fifty year war between humans and witches, one that nearly destroyed the world, and bound the witches' magic to its terms. After he and Maka had met, he finally read the treaty and seen the way the renewals gave less and less to the witches over time so it's little surprise to hear about the treaty's unpopularity among the witches, though he has no idea how it'd affect their magic in the way Maka is describing.

"But Mabaa would be able to sense the same thing, right?" he asks finally. "With the magic."

"I would imagine so."

"And she would have told you if something was wrong?"

"I suppose," Maka says, shrugging. A breeze rustles through her hair as she looks across the meadow. "It wouldn't be something she could hide at least."

"See?" he says with a confidence he doesn't feel. "She would have mentioned it by now." When Maka's expression remains unconvinced, he adds, "The lords at the other castles would have sent word if any of the witches there noticed anything out of the ordinary and my father hasn't mentioned hearing from them recently."

It feels foreign to look on the bright side of things but his words seem to work; the doubt on Maka's face begins to ebb away though the tension in her body remains.

"Do you really think there's nothing to worry about?" she asks.

There is the world's weight in her words and he hesitates to give the reassurance that springs to his lips, in part because he is not well-practiced at offering comfort but mainly because he has no true answer to Maka's question.

"I think you should talk about it with Mabaa," Soul says after a pause, settling on honesty. "There's not much I can say except it's a promising sign that the world hasn't ended yet."

Surprised laughter spills from Maka's lips as she needles Soul in the side. "Is that really the most comforting thing you could come up with?"

"Probably not," he answers, accepting her pokes with as much grace as he can manage. "But it is the truth and that's about as comforting I can get,"

"I'll miss you," he tacks on in a mumbled rush before he can talk himself out of it.

"How touching." She laughs again, drier but still amused; the cloud that had fallen over her eyes has lifted somewhat and she exhales loudly. "I've needed to talk about this for a while."

"Why didn't you?" It's a slightly hypocritical question to ask, considering he keeps a large part of his words and an even bigger majority of his thoughts to himself. However, the self-doubt that acts as the gatekeeper of his thoughts comes to life at the idea that Maka doesn't consider him the exception like he does her.

"I'm the witch, I'm supposed to have answers not questions," Maka says, straightening up and pushing the bangs out of her face. "But I don't." Her lips purse together before she speaks again. "When Mabaa didn't say anything, I told myself it was all right but I couldn't forget about it." There's something else hiding in her voice but before Soul can ask, she blows out a breath and says, "And you were the only one I could talk to about it."

"How do you feel now?" A small, selfish part of him perks up at her last words but he silences it.

"Still worried but the world hasn't ended yet." Maka conjures up a worn basket with a twist of her hand and when she smiles at him, it reaches her eyes. "So that's a good thing."

Soul matches her grin. "Promising, at least."

"Right." The cape of Maka's uniform flutters about her as she rises. She'd been given the uniform when she had turned thirteen, replacing her apprentice shirt and ruffled skirt for a jacket whose tail fell past her knees and a plain skirt. When Soul looked at her now, he didn't have any trouble believing she held magic in her fingertips.

Maka glances down at him. "Do you have to head back?"

"My tutor got sick so I have the day off." He follows suit, brushing the grass from his pants.

"And music?"

"Missing one day won't hurt," he says, shrugging. After his last recital, he's stopped denying the fact that his limits are nowhere close to the expectations he was born into. "And I doubt I'll hear any complaints from my music tutor."

Maka frowns but she doesn't comment on it. "Fine, but you'd better not forget the song you said you'd play for me," she says instead. "You told me it'd be done soon and that was last year."

Visions of half-finished composition sheets stuffed away in his desk flash across Soul's mind and regret of his promise to Maka, rashly made in a moment of rare confidence, sours on his tongue. He grinds his heel into the ground and dodges giving a real answer. "If I ever get it right, you'll be the first to hear it."

"Excellent." She returns her attention to the basket, lined with odd-smelling plants that makes Soul's eyes water. "I need to store up on some herbs since Mabaa and I can leave a store of potions and poultices for the infirmary."

As Soul follows Maka out of the meadow, he feels the necklace move in his pocket, reminding him of the gift he has yet to give. When he opens his mouth, however, he says, "Sounds like a berry fun time."

Maka makes something between a noise of disgust and a giggle. "That's not even funny in the bad kind of way."

"How about you try then?" he rejoins. His hands wrap around the necklace and he swallows as he tries to summon the courage to pull it out, staring at the back of Maka's head. She abandoned her pigtails a while ago, opting to leave it loose, though she had kept the tiny wing pins that used to hold her pigtails in place.

She tosses him a backwards glance. "I don't go out on a limb like that."

Letting go of the necklace, he manages a casual eye roll. "Funny."

Breathing out quietly, Soul stares up at the sky and pushes the necklace to the back of his thoughts. _Today,_ he promises himself. _But later._

* * *

Dusk dyes the sky a hazy lavender, staining the forest in murky darkness by the time they reach the end of Maka's list. A wind, sharp and cold, whispers through the trees and spreads goosebumps across Soul's skin and he dances in place as he squints down at the ground, little more than shadow in the dying light. Even with the wind, his clothes stick uncomfortably to him-most of the herbs Maka needed had been scattered throughout the forest and the blazing sun and his thick clothes had done well to give him the feeling of being baked alive.

It was still a better day than being at the mercy of his tutors, who slowly consume more and more of his time. Bending down, Soul plucks a couple bundles of what he _thinks_ is false unicorn's tail, brings it to his nose, inhales tentatively and immediately chokes on dandelion fluff.

Maka comes up behind him as he hacks up what feels like his left lung. "You sound like you're dying."

"Only slightly dead," he manages to say between coughs, dropping the dandelions. He sucks in a breath, eyes watering. "How can you see anything?"

"Witches have better senses than humans," Maka replies matter-of-factly, lifting her basket. "Which is why I found the unicorn's tail first."

He rubs at his eyes. "I wasn't aware this was a competition."

"And now you are," Maka answers airily. She twists the hand that holds the basket and it disappears in the same way it first appeared.

Soul scrutinizes the space where the basket had been. "Could you do the same thing with us?"

"Living things use a lot of energy to transport. The energy it would take to move a human would be too much," she says, shaking her head. "Mabaa is the most powerful witch I know and the most I've seen her teleport is a squirrel."

"How about you turn us into squirrels then?"

"Don't be lazy." Maka steps closer, poking Soul playfully in the shoulder. "Let's go."

He makes a face she can't see. "And the dark?"

"That I can take care of." Soul's heart makes a strange flop as Maka presses close to him. "I've been hoping for a chance to show you this, actually."

Before he can ask, she begins to speak in a quiet undertone into her hands. Soul has the sensation of being dunked underwater; even though Maka stands right next to him, her words are muffled, flowing and slipping into air like they were living things. Her hands bunch, as if she was holding something, and then she opens them.

Light, much brighter than the beads of light Maka summoned earlier, springs forward into the air, flying everywhere. The light twists and splits off into a countless tiny fragments, shaping themselves into tiny spheres; for several moments, there is a flurry of movement as the light spheres fly back and forth like tiny comets, filling the forest with a soft light.

Eventually, they come to a stop, hovering in place. Like a moth, Soul is drawn in-he isn't aware he's moving until his fingers pass through one of the lights. At a distance, the lights throw a hazy glow on the world, like fireflies, but up close they twinkle with a near-dazzling white and silver sparkle, fading to a dull gold before pulsing bright again.

"That took more magic than usual." Maka's voice breaks the silence and Soul turns. Curiosity has long replaced the wariness she used to wear whenever she showed Soul her magic but something else he can't identify underlies her expression. "What do you think?"

Recovering, Soul casts another look about him. The forest shines gossamer silver in the glow of the lights; their delicate pulsing reminds him of a heartbeat and the whispers that seem to pass between the lights gives him the feeling of standing in something very alive. It feels almost wrong to speak but he finally clears his throat. "It feels like standing in the middle of a starfall."

Whatever is hidden in Maka's expression deepens before a smile lights briefly across her face. "That's a good description for it," she says, moving to stand next to him. Words hang heavy in the air as Maka cups one of the lights with her hands; she pulls her hands closer to her face and the light follows. Her skin turns vaguely translucent as she peers down at the light. "This is what I see when I see souls."

Soul hides his surprise at her words; other than the time she described a soul for him once, it's rare that Maka talks about her ability to see souls. "Can many witches see souls?" he asks interestedly.

"Soul magic is rare," Maka answers, shaking her head. Her voice turns soft. "It's also considered unlucky."

He frowns. "Why?"

"Not many people like having the truth of what's inside their soul revealed to a complete stranger." She drops her hands to her sides and the light drifts away. "And most witches born seeing souls can't handle seeing the truth of everything and everyone all the time. It's like staring into the sun."

Soul blinks back the surprise that bloomed at her words. "So they went blind?"

"Some of them did go blind," Maka confirms. "Or they chose to. But most of them went insane."

Silence descends; Soul vacillates temporarily. "But you're neither."

A smile flashes on her lips. "That's what I'm told at least."

She goes silent, chewing on unspoken words. Soul waits.

"My mother was born with soul magic but she didn't succumb to it." Maka lifts a hand to call back the light that had floated away. "When she discovered that I could see souls, she tried to teach me how to be like her but surviving and teaching someone how to survive are different things." The light dances around her hand, just out of reach. "I think it got frustrating for her."

A chord strikes hard at a place that Soul has buried inside of him but he pushes it away.

"I tried hard to do everything like she did but I didn't know how to control my magic _like her._ " With her finger, Maka traces a circle around the light. "She stayed until she couldn't stand to be around my papa anymore." Her voice carries the kind of detachedness that comes from a pain that has been felt too deeply and for too long. "That's what I'm told anyways. The day after she left Mabaa came for me. She has soul magic too, I've been with her ever since."

There's a slight hitch in her throat and then nothing, her breathing turning into the quiet and shallow breathing of someone working desperately to keep from crying. Soul wavers before he moves, edging closer till he bumps shoulders with Maka. She freezes and he nearly pulls away before she leans into the contact.

"She sends letters. I got one from her today," Maka says. "I keep them all." Half of her face is illuminated by the lights while the rest is cast in shadow. "But I don't ask when she's coming home anymore."

"Is that wrong?" she asks suddenly, looking at Soul. "That I gave up?"

"I-" He blinks and bites back a breath, weighing his words. "Avoiding disappointment is not the same thing as giving up," he says finally. "Protecting yourself isn't wrong, even if it's from a person you love."

Maka chews on her lip. "I want to make her proud of me."

Old memories swim to the surface of his mind but Soul drowns them again with a practiced ease. "You can want a lot of things from people and still feel the way you do about them."

Her only answer is a pensive hum. Light reflects in her eyes as Maka continues to play with the ball of light grazing her fingertips, masking her thoughts. Moments later, she gives a tiny shake of her head. "It's late." She bumps shoulders with Soul before she moves away. "Thanks for listening."

"That's what friends do." Maka's hands are bunched at her side and there's a fragile glassiness to Maka's eyes but he doesn't mention it, accepting the abrupt closure of the conversation. "Good friends, at least."

A small laugh escapes from her. "Is it now?"

"Generally speaking, yes." The last of the tension in the air dissipates as she sticks her tongue out at him and they begin to follow the trail of lights together.

He feels rather than sees the roll of her eyes; the silence that falls between them is comfortable and warm.

"You know I'm your friend too?"

The question catches Soul off-guard and he almost stumbles. He flips through the entirety of their friendship before answering. "Yes."

It comes out sounding more like a question and he clears his throat. "Why do you ask?"

"You stay stuck in your head sometimes." Maka peeks over at him, pushing her hair back. "I just want you to know I'm here."

Something constricts around Soul's heart and he swallows hard; it's impossible to tell when the seeds of doubt sprouted and spread across his mind but he had thought he'd been doing a good job of hiding it, at least.

He quashes the part of him that tugs on the feelings trapped in his throat. "I know that."

"Good," Maka says lightly. She moves on from the subject in the same way Soul did for her. "I can't wait to show Mabaa the soul-lights. I've been working on this on my own for weeks."

"Is it an advanced spell?" He reaches into his pocket for the necklace-there's no way it will compare to the lights' beauty but the nerves gnawing at him have grown more annoying than paralyzing.

"Somewhere at the intermediate level," Maka says, ducking under a tree branch. "But I-"

The forest turns dark.

Soul crashes into Maka as she grinds to a halt, grabbing her shoulders to keep from sending them both to the ground. His breath catches in his throat as the lights wink out of existence and plunges them into the dark. "What's happening?"

"I don't know." Maka is nothing more than a breathing shadow. She shifts and he catches the twist of her hand as she calls up the lights again; they re-appear momentarily before snuffing out.

Dropping his hands from Maka's shoulders, Soul flicks his gaze across the forest. The darkness is different somehow-dense, taut, and alive. He jumps when Maka takes his hand. Her voice is apologetic. "Sorry, I just can't see anything."

"It's okay." He tightens his hand around hers. "Is this magic?"

"Yes." She tugs on him and they begin to ease forward together, slowly and carefully. "But I can't tell whose it is." There's a frown in her tone. "It's muffled somehow, I can barely sense it at all."

"Could Mabaa be testing you?"

"I doubt it." She navigates them over a tree root. "It's not her style."

"Then who is it?"

"I haven't been around the other witches for four years." Maka's voice is calm but there is a worry undercutting her words. "The auras their magic gives off are unfamiliar." She continues, "Either way, a witch not assigned to a castle isn't allowed to visit without express permission. It's a violation of the tre-"

The sound of soft growling from behind cuts short the rest of her reply. It doesn't sound like any animal Soul has ever heard before, a high-pitched growl that digs under his skin and makes the hair on his arms stand on end.

They listen before the growling disappears and Soul finds his voice again. "What is that?"

Maka answers in a whisper. "I don't know."

For several moments, they stay frozen in place and then a bark cuts through the trees. Maka yanks on Soul's hand as the creature barks again. "Move!"

Stumbling forward, Soul holds tight to Maka's hand as they break into a run. Without light, it's impossible to break into a full sprint; roots tangle between his feet and the sting of branches hitting his face keep him from being able to see where he is going. Whatever is chasing them is huge, booming footfalls sounding through the forest as it stalks them.

He lets out a yelp when Maka trips, nearly pulling his arm out of his socket as she tries and fails to keep her balance, ripping her hand from his grasp.

Soul narrowly avoids tripping over her as he screeches to a halt. He reaches out in the dark for her, crouching down when his fingers brush against the top of her head. "Are you okay?"

Maka's eyes catch the little light in the forest. "I twisted my ankle," she says, panting heavily.

The barks of the creature sound loudly and he swallows. "Can you stand?"

"Maybe." She sucks in a breath and holds out an arm. "But I don't think I can walk."

Soul hooks his arm with hers as he helps Maka up, careful to keep a hand on her shoulder. "Get on my back."

"No," she hisses. "You go, I can defend myself."

He adopts the same stubborn edge in his voice. "I'm not leaving you."

She begins to argue before breaking off with a sigh. "Fine."

Soul totters back slightly as she scrambles on his back, hooking his arms behind her knees as she latches her arms around his neck. It isn't easy as he thought to walk with Maka on his back but the creature's snarls behind them pushes him to move forward.

The creature's footsteps continue to follow them as Soul maneuvers through the forest but strangely, it doesn't move closer than it already has, keeping itself at a distance even though Soul moves at a much slower pace.

"Stop," Maka says suddenly.

"What?" Soul does not stop but quickens his pace instead, craning his head slightly to look at her. "Why?"

"It's not a monster." She twists back and he almost loses his balance. "It's an illusion."

"How do you know that?"

I don't," she answers. "Not for certain. But anything chasing us would have already caught up to us by now and only magic can silence other magic the way it did to mine."

He can't deny the first point but still he doesn't slow. "And if it turns out that it's real?"

"At least, we'll be close enough to fight it."

"Perfect," he snorts. There's a brief pause. "How do we break this illusion then?"

"Belief powers illusion magic." Maka's fingers tap nervously against his collarbone. "We have to face it first and then I can cast a disillusion spell."

He nearly laughs. "That is not happening."

"Then let me down."

"Also not happening."

Soul feels Maka squirm and bites back a sigh. "Fine."

It feels intensely wrong to stop and turn around, every nerve in his body screaming at him to run, but he does. The noises of the creature grow louder as they stand there but even when the growling is so close Soul expects to feel the creature's teeth wrap around his ankle, he spies no moving shadows or flash of fangs catching on the moonlight.

Maka's voice makes him start. "Can you see it?"

"No." He lets out a breath, gaze sweeping carefully across the forest. "It isn't real."

All at once, the growls of the creature double, triple until they're echoing all around them.

He tamps down the urge to run. "What's happening?"

"The illusion breaking." Maka murmurs a few words and the growls die away. "It's easy to say you don't believe in something, harder to prove it."

"Also exponentially more terrifying." The pounding of Soul's heart in his ears starts to fade. "Who was the illusion caster?"

"They're gone." The lights return when Maka waves her hand again, twinkling like they never went out. "I can't feel them anymore."

The quiet that follows is heavy.

"It's not necessarily a bad thing," Soul says to the silence. "There aren't many reasons why a witch would be here but it doesn't mean it's bad."

"Can you think of any good ones?" Maka doesn't sound like she even tries to believe his words and he can't blame her.

"Not at the moment." The lights arc towards the trail that leads in and out of the forest and he begins to follow them. "Give me some time."

She laughs at that but when she speaks, her voice is somber. "I need to tell Mabaa."

"You might want to bandage that first." He looks down at her ankle; it's slightly swollen but it's not bruising at least. "And rest too."

He doesn't need to see Maka's face to hear the frown twisting her lips. "It only hurts when I move it."

"So you're going to fly around everywhere with those boots?" he asks.

"I already told you the wings are decorative."

"Going to have someone carry you around everywhere then?"

She pokes the back of his neck. "And here I was thinking you volunteered."

"That was when I thought our lives were in mortal danger."

Maka hides her laugh in a huff but when she doesn't respond with a quick retort, he knows that her mind has wandered back to their conversation in the clearing.

Soul waits one more minute before glancing back at her. "Maka?"

It takes a beat for her to meet his eyes. "Yes?"

"World still hasn't ended yet?"

Her eyes widen slightly and then he catches sight of the curve of her smile. Maka tightens her hold around his neck. "Not yet."

* * *

It's only when Soul wakes up early the next morning, having rolled on his side in the middle of the night, that he feels the lump of the necklace still in his pocket. He yawns as he pulls it out and stuffs underneath his pillow.

He'll give it to Maka soon.

Eventually.


	2. Part 1-2

16 years old

* * *

The treaty is much bigger than Soul would have ever thought, riding in a carefully guarded box in a carriage of its own. Beside him, Maka sticks her head out of the window and closes her eyes as the rain misting down hits her face.

"You're going to get a cold," he says as she pulls back into the carriage.

"I can heal myself."

"Getting a runny nose for any length of time is still unpleasant."

She makes a face, moving back to look outside the window again. The realm of the witches is a land shrouded in mist with blue-black plants that move when Soul isn't looking directly at them, animals that either have too many eyes or teeth, and iron-gray castles that look like broken teeth and appear out of nowhere. Here, Soul can sense the magic around him, weighing down on his shoulders like a cloak.

They pass by another castle, this one surrounded by large bird cages. There are thirteen covens, he remembers Maka telling him before they set off, each with a castle of their own and represented by their familiar. He assumes this coven's familiar is a bird of some sort, though he doesn't know of any bird that requires a birdcage that big.

His gaze moves back to Maka. Since they crossed over into the witches' territory, there's been a distracted air in her voice and a nervous bounce in her movements.

"How do you feel about coming back?" he asks.

"I've only visited here a few times," she answers, not taking her eyes off the passing countryside. "I wouldn't call it coming back to anywhere."

"No coven?"

"Covenless." She shakes her head. "My mother left hers to go live with my father and Mabaa lived outside the witches' territory. No one complained because she's the oldest."

"Why did she leave?"

"Too many gossips," she says. "She said she was two centuries too old for hearing it."

Her voice is light but he can hear the somberness running underneath it. "If only I had that excuse."

"You certainly have the appearance for it." Maka snorts and leans back, finally looking at him.

He scowls in mock offence. "This is hereditary, my grandma was born with white hair too."

"At least you carry it well."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Maka hums, light flashing between her fingers in the way it does when she's nervous but doesn't want to talk, so Soul stays quiet and goes back to reviewing the letter from his father.

Relations between the witches and humans have only declined more than they already have over the past two years, with the outright refusal from the leaders of three witch covens to leave their home to sign the treaty. It was a clear provocation for war-the lords had convened at Lord Evans' castle and argued for several days before Wes suggested sending an envoy to the witches' realm for the treaty signing. That had also taken many days and countless messages between the lords and witches' assembly to arrange but they were in the witches' territory now, treaty in tow.

It was the first time that the treaty wouldn't be signed in human territory and, for all of the talk of the act being a move towards equity and equality, anyone who worked on the inside of the treaty knew it was the exact opposite. There wasn't much good in the treaty without a signature from every coven, which was a fact that the witches had used when arranging the treaty signing.

The same distrust on the humans' side was why the envoy moved in two groups: one with Wes and Mabaa, who supposedly traveled with the treaty, and the other with Soul and Maka, who carried the real treaty. With Maka, who was nearly a fully realized witch, there was little need for the guards who accompanied them but his father had insisted.

The gentle pitter-patter of rain sounds against the ceiling of the carriage and Soul looks up from the letter. Maka hasn't moved, worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth while her brow furrows in deep thought.

After their encounter with the illusion in the forest, Maka had never seemed quite at ease, even after reporting what happened to Mabaa. She was good at hiding her worry, though Soul noticed the way she paid more attention to the news brought by the messengers from other lords. When word of the location change of the treaty signing broke, she hadn't said anything but had gotten quiet, like how she did when something truly worried her.

She shifts, as if she can feel Soul looking at her, and meets his eyes. "I don't have something stuck in my hair, do I?"

Heat burns in his cheeks. Looking at Maka directly seems to be something he can't do without blushing these days. "No, nothing."

"Then?"

He shrugs. "Just thinking."

"Thinking," she repeats. A sly tone enters her voice. "Not getting scared, are you?"

"Not likely," he says, rolling his eyes. "I've dreamed of worse things."

Maka's expression changes abruptly and he frowns. "What?"

"You had a nightmare while you were sleeping on the way here," she answers after a beat of silence. She narrows her eyes at him, though concern lights her face. "You hadn't told me they had gotten that bad."

He shrugs but a knot forms in his stomach. The dreams where he's drowning in darkness visit him almost nightly now but he hadn't thought the nap he'd taken in the carriage was enough time for a nightmare to take hold.

"They're annoying but that's all," he says. "Nothing worth telling about."

The look on Maka's face tells him she remains unconvinced.

"It's fine," he insists. "If they ever become worse, I'll tell you."

The carriage jolts as they dip into a particularly big hole in the dirt road; they start and Maka tumbles forward and nearly smacks heads with Soul. He catches her by the shoulder, looking up to find her face inches from his.

He jerks back, dropping his hand. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Maka's cheeks are a strange shade of pink as she speaks and looks out of the window. Her eyes widen and she points. "Look!"

Soul peers out of his window to see the largest castle he's seen in their journey so far; unlike the other castles, this one is made out of pitch black stone and looks almost like a mountain except for the giant arrows that criss-cross around its exterior.

Wes, Mabaa and the rest of their party are already waiting by the footsteps of the castle. The serious face on Wes' face fades when he sees their carriage and he gives a cheery wave.

The carriage bounces slightly as it moves from the road to smooth stone. Soul exchanges a glance with Maka. "Ready?"

She gives him a smile that almost hides the worry in her eyes, though she raises her head with the same kind of fearlessness she always carries herself with. "Is there a choice?"

* * *

It's oddly bright inside the castle as they're led by a cloaked servant down a series of hallways. Everything, from the portraits on the wall to the snake statues standing at every corner, seems to dwarf them, which only increases the feeling of ominous foreboding that's picked intermittently at Soul all day. By the agreement set out by the witches, their group isn't very big-the two dozen guards sent to escort Soul, Wes and the two witches are laughable in comparison to the magic exuding from the walls of the fortress.

Maka stays next to Soul as they walk. Curiosity replaces her unease as her eyes dart from corner to corner, taking in everything around them. Occasionally, she probes the servant with questions that they answer in a nearly indiscernible voice. Meanwhile, Mabaa strides ahead of everyone, even the servant. From what Soul could see of the old witch's face when they were outside, she had seemed thoroughly unimpressed and unintimidated.

"She was part of this coven before she left," Maka says to Soul. "Led it for a while, actually."

"A while?"

"A few centuries."

He continues to stare after the old witch, trying to imagine living more than a handful of decades. "I'm understanding more and more why she became a hermit."

Maka's words drop into a whisper. "She helped write the original treaty so it's a shame that she did. A lot of the other leaders who wrote the treaty have have also stepped down or died."

Soul lowers his voice as well. "And I'm guessing that the new leaders aren't as receptive to the treaty."

"Not very," she agrees. "But they always managed until the leader that replaced Mabaa died unexpectedly. A witch named Medusa took her place and she's been even less...cooperative."

Wes' voice sounds in Soul's ear as a hand claps on his shoulder. "I thought I'd hear something more interesting than politics when I saw you whispering."

Soul rolls his eyes while Maka flashes a smile. "Maybe when we're back home."

He gives her a look. "Don't encourage him."

"You're a few years late for that warning." Wes glances back to where the box containing the treaty is being carried by four of the guards sent with them. "Not going too badly, right?"

"We just arrived."

"Still, a good start translates into a good middle and end. Generally speaking." Wes adjusts the hems of his sleeves before tugging on the fastenings to his cape. He manages to look completely comfortable even when dressed head to toe in royal formalwear.

"You're being awfully optimistic," Maka notes.

"Not much of a choice when the other option is curling up in a corner to cry." Wes says as the hallway opens up into a sprawling courtyard, stone walls covered in ivy. Ahead of them, in the middle of the courtyard, is a stone table where thirteen faces turn to them.

"Guess that's my cue to take center stage." Wes rolls back his shoulders and quickens his pace to catch up with Mabaa.

Soul meets eyes with Maka. "Nervous?"

Another smile spreads briefly across her face again. "Terrified, maybe," she says. "But nervous, no."

* * *

Night is falling by the time the witches leave, though hanging lanterns appear from out of nowhere and light themselves.

Wes continues to talk with Medusa, the head of the snake coven, while two witches, one with dark hair and the other with hair that continually changes colors, stay behind as the other witches depart. Mabaa, who had sat through the meeting without saying a word, rises and walks away from the table when the two witches speak to her.

Maka taps her shoes against the grass from where she and Soul sit on a stone bench. "This is more…"

"Boring?" Soul fills in.

"Less eventful than I thought it was going to be," Maka corrects. "Not that it's a bad thing."

"Wes is having the time of his life, at least," he says, looking towards him. Even with the threat of war looming over him, his brother looks completely relaxed, chatting animatedly with Medusa and the dark-haired witch. The other witch has seemingly disappeared.

"What do you think?" Soul tilts his head towards the table. "Of it all?"

"A few of the witches seem alright, most of their souls are a mix of good and bad," Maka answers. Her shoulders lift. "Like most people."

Soul studies Maka carefully. There's the faint sheen to her face when her soul magic is too much of a drain. "It's not too overwhelming for your perception, is it?"

"It's manageable," she says in a tone that leaves no room for argument. "But-" Soul follows Maka's gaze where her eyes are trained on Medusa. "I feel like something is rotting in her soul but I'm not sure what. But she's proud of it."

He frowns. "And Mabaa-"

"Has known Medusa for longer than I have," says Maka. "She knows."

They fall silent as Wes approaches them, the two witches following him.

"No treaty signing today," he says brightly, as if the departure of witches hadn't made it obvious. There isn't the slightest sound of agitation in his voice, like this was precisely what he wanted. "There are still some things we have to go over."

"Medusa is graciously offering us rooms to stay in," Wes continues. His eyes only glance to the treaty, positioned in its box next to Soul and Maka, for an instant. He gestures to the other witch. "Her sister, Arachne, will also be staying the night."

The ruby at Arachne's neck bobs as she gives a fluid curtsy. Her dress, black as her hair, doesn't seem to end but vanishes into the shadows instead. "It is quite an honor for the most powerful lord to send his two sons as representatives," she says, words like silk.

"A gesture we appreciate deeply." Medusa does not curtsy like her sister, inclining her head. Although her eyes are a warm golden color, there is no heat in them as she smiles. A sharpness dwells in her gaze, lighting on Soul before moving onto Maka, who stiffens. "As well as the chance to see how our coven's youngest daughter has grown up."

The expression in Maka's face is steely. "I'm covenless," she says. "By choice."

Medusa raises an eyebrow. "Oh, did Mabaa really give you a choice then?"

She scoffs. "I always had the freedom to choose and my answer still hasn't changed."

The tension is nearly palpable. Soul searches frantically for something to say but it's Wes who steps forward. "I am all for lively conversation," he says. "But perhaps we can do it over dinner?"

"Yes, sister, where are your manners?" Arachne snaps her fingers and a servant with a nose that would look more at home on a mosquito appears. "Show them to the dining hall."

"Your guards can stay with the treaty while we chat inside." The smile on Medusa's face widens and Soul can see why Medusa calls the snake her familiar. Her eyes linger on Maka, hands clenched in fists, for another beatt before she turns away. "I'm quite interested in the stories you have to share."

* * *

Soul is writhing against the tendrils of liquid darkness when something yanks on his arm urgently. He struggles against that too until a voice joins the tugging. "Wake up!"

He blinks himself awake, staring at the shadow standing over him. "Maka?"

"Are you okay?" Maka's face comes into focus as she leans closer, pulling down the hood of her cloak. Worry runs along the crease of her brow and she lifts a hand, as if to reach out. "Was that a nightmare?"

"More in the area of a mildly bad dream," he mutters, sitting up. "I don't remember my nightmares or anything in between that well." He blinks again as sleep drains away from him. "Wait, what are you doing here?"

"I-" A sheepish look replaces the concern on her face and Maka takes a step back, twisting her finger around a lock of hair that's escaped from her pigtails. "I couldn't sleep."

He rubs his eyes, trying and failing to scrub the nightmare from his mind. "So the logical thing is to wake me up?"

"It's for a reason, obviously." Her scowl is visible even in near-complete darkness. "I wanted to show you something."

Even though he is firmly rooted in reality, the darkness from the nightmare seems to fill Soul's lungs and he resists the urge to itch at his chest. "And this isn't a something that can wait till morning?"

She hesitates. "It's a something that requires some light rule bending."

"Is that what breaking witch law is called nowadays?" he asks as he swings his legs over the bed, abandoning his attempts to shake the nightmare away from him. It's never followed him into consciousness before but at least he doesn't have to be alone here.

Maka grins at him and Soul's heart does a jump into his throat that he didn't think was possible. "Is it really any fun without a little risk?"

* * *

"Wait," Maka whispers. She lifts a hand to Soul, who trails after, as she stops at the end of a hallway and peeks around the corner.

Soul inches closer and peeks over her shoulder, spying two guards in identical cloaks as the guard that greeted them outside of the castle. "Is this what you mean by light rule bending?"

"Possibly. Also, you should cover your ears." She cups her hand in the way she does when she's about to perform word magic and Soul immediately places his hands over his ears than ask questions.

He watches as Maka speaks and her words take shape in the air. Words are oddly shaped things, he's learned since Maka started practicing word magic two years ago; they never look like what he imagines they'd look like-these ones are made of soft spirals and glow faintly pink and purple as they drift to the guards.

He drops his hands as the words disappear and the two guards slump to the ground. "Sleeping spell?"

Maka breathes slightly heavily, nodding. "It takes more energy to cast on magical being than a human."

"Do you want to rest?"

She gives him a look. "Not that much energy."

Soft snores issue from underneath the guards' hoods as they pause in front of the doors they were watching. The doors have stretch to the ceiling and have no locks, emblazoned with a pair of golden snakes interlocked together.

Maka speaks again-her words sound nothing like the language she uses for her spells, soft yet rough like the hissing of a snake. Nothing happens for a moment and then the snakes come alive, untangling from each other.

"Medusa took me here when she was trying to convince me to join the coven," she says by way of explanation as the doors swing open.

"Which is something I'm still wondering why you didn't tell me about," Soul says pointedly as he follows her inside. The room opens up into what appears to be a giant atrium, filled with vividly colored plants while the night sky peeks through the glass ceiling.

"I did tell you that I was coming here two summers ago." A tinge of guilt enters Maka's voice as she follows into step with him. She flicks her fingers out and tiny balls of light fill the atrium. "The specifics weren't that important."

"That's not the way Medusa made it seem." After wrestling with himself for a minute, he adds, "And they are to me."

Maka meets his eyes, sighing. "I didn't want to tell you because I already made my choice before I even left." She pauses, hitching her nightgown to her knees as they move off the stone path and wade into overgrown grass. "Witches belong to the coven their mother belonged to but since my mother left before I was born, I was covenless. Generally, the covenless choose their coven when they're thirteen but Mabaa postponed it for me for a year. It wasn't something I could hold off forever, though."

She shrugs. "Medusa tried the hardest since this was the coven I would have been born into but I refused."

They stop in the center of the atrium, where a large well opens wide. Soul peers inside and catches a glimpse of something incandescent but Maka pulls him back before he can get a good look. "Medusa said that if a human stared into it for too long, they'd jump in."

"Unpleasant."

"It leads to the depths of time and space, according to her," Maka says, glancing inside. She sits on the ground and leans against the well.

Soul joins her. "I don't think I believe that."

"Neither do I," Maka agrees. She points upward to the sky. "Though this is what I wanted to show you."

The glass on the ceiling ripples as Maka waves a hand and a ball of dazzling light replaces the view of the sky. Soul gawks in dumbfounded silence before looking back at Maka. "What is this?"

"The same stars but magnified," answers Maka. She waves her hand again and the sky returns to normal. "One of the few things I liked about this place."

They're quiet as they watch the stars, Maka occasionally zooming in on different constellations. Soul goes from gazing at the sky to glancing at Maka from the corner of his eye; he recalls the two weeks Maka was gone two summers ago-she'd seemed relieved when she got back but he assumed it was because she was homesick.

"Why did you decide to stay?"

Maka blinks at his words and then she purses her lips as she considers. "Mabaa is a good teacher, for one. This place is too gloomy, for another." Her fingers toy with her sleeve and she slowly moves her head to look at Soul. "But mostly I didn't want to leave."

There is another conversation underlying this one and a brightness in Maka's eyes that rivals the stars they were looking at but Soul isn't quite sure how to navigate the situation. His mind comes up with several semi-eloquent responses for once but all he is able to say is, "That's good, then."

Maka's lips press together briefly. "Yes, I think so too."

"And when you're a fully realized witch?" he asks suddenly. "What do you plan on doing then?"

Maka tilts her head to the side but she doesn't look confused at him abandoning the thread of the conversation. "I don't know, maybe-"

The sound of an explosion drowns out her words and sends the world spinning in darkness.

* * *

18 years old

* * *

"The barrier around the north is breaking," Maka says by way of greeting as she enters Soul's tent. "One of the witches from the raven coven turned on us and cursed one of the towns next to the barrier. It made a hole and now every monster that's been pressing against the barrier is pouring in."

Soul looks up from the letter he just received from Wes. "Would this be a good time to tell you that Wes just lost half of his people to an ambush?"

"Probably not." Maka sinks into the chair next to him and runs her hands through her hair. The leather on her light armor is fraying in some places, though it's mostly for show with the defensive shields she can cast. "Is he all right?"

"They took down Shaula and he cracked a joke at the end so I think so." Soul drops the letter on the table. "What was the curse the witch cast?"

"Nothing will grow in or within a mile around that town again," she answers. "Which is really unfortunate since it fed half of the towns around the barrier."

"So not an easy fix." Exhaustion itches at his eyes but sleep is the last thing he wants at the moment. "How does a curse like that make a hole?"

"Magic takes energy to cast," Maka says. "But cursing takes your life force. And life spreads." Her smile turns morbid. "It takes your whole life to cast a curse on someone or something that badly."

Soul stares at the table before speaking. "That is horrible. Also terrifying."

"Accurate words for it."

"Terrifying and horrible is Medusa's strategy, though," he says. "Why not cast partial curses to break down the rest of the barrier?"

"Cursing also obliterates your ability to reincarnate," answers Maka. She reaches over to snag an uneaten apple from the plate of food Soul pushed aside. "There are few witches who would give that up."

He blinks. "I thought the reincarnation myth was only that."

Maka swallows the bite of apple in her mouth. "It's true for witches with our magic. And anyone with royal or noble blood."

He frowns. "My blood?"

"Warlocks existed at one point, though there were never as many as witches." Maka's eyes gleam in the way they always do when she's sharing a story, something Soul hasn't seen in a long time. "The last warlock had thirteen sons with a human woman at the end of his life. He blessed them each with a prosperous life and a special ability before he died and eventually they became the first of the high lords. It was quite the scandal, according to Mabaa."

He starts at the mention of the dead witch. It had been to Maka's surprise as much as his when Mabaa appeared out of nowhere with Wes the night Medusa destroyed the treaty but the witch had kept her secrets from Maka. After their feet hit the ground on the place she had teleported them to, the first thing Maka said, "Her soul is gone," and he knew.

Heaving a sigh, Maka continues. "The treaty didn't bind because of a signature on a piece of paper. It's because of the warlock blood, little as it might be. Although Medusa did have to destroy the treaty to kick off the war." She takes a breath. "The point is that you'll be able to reincarnate too."

"Well, I guess that answers why my father insisted I was a musical prodigy." Soul contemplates the insides of his cup before looking up. "The idea of living another life makes me want to throw up a little."

"Your father says that because it's true." Maka's nose scrunches up as she gives his shoulder a light shove. "And would you miss out on the chance of meeting me again?"

The protest halfway out of his mouth dries up. Soul meets her gaze. "Would we meet again?"

"I don't know." It's hard to tell in low light but he thinks he sees a flush on Maka's face. "There's a chance, at least."

"And would we know each other?" he asks.

"I don't know that either." Her hand is curling around his suddenly, although he has no idea how it happened. "I hope so."

It takes all of Soul's concentration not to stare down at their hands. "The barrier," Soul says finally.

"And Wes," Maka adds quietly. "Neither can wait for long."

They don't say what they already know. Soul glances at Maka. "How long will it take to seal the barrier and return?"

"Maybe two weeks. Three at most," she answers. "How long to reach Wes and come back?"

"The same," he says, losing the battle to not look down.

"Three weeks then." Maka's voice is the deceptive kind of calm when something is too painful to even name.

He squeezes her hand. "Three weeks."

* * *

20 years old

* * *

"It's tomorrow."

The fog from being awake for the last two days to avoid his nightmares makes it difficult to concentrate on Wes' words but Soul makes the attempt. "Can you define what it is?"

"They know we've been gathering and so have they." Wes drops the report he's been reading on the table in front of them, rubbing at his face. He looks like he's aged ten years in the year since their father died but it's not a subject Soul can bring himself to mention. "Some of our trackers on the barrier's border spotted shadow snakes a few days ago. Judging by their size, they'll be here by morning."

He straightens, shoving away the exhaustion curling in his chest. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I trust you but I don't trust our surroundings," Wes answers. "It isn't easy to find you on your own, little brother."

"Blame it on the world crashing down around us." It's quiet for a moment and then Soul whistles. "So Medusa's finally showing herself after four years. She must be getting desperate."

"After Arachne was killed, their side has never been quite the same," Wes agrees, tugging his hair out of his ponytail. "Though it must have been worse than we thought."

"Still won't be an easy fight and we still have people spread all over." Soul keeps his tone light but he can't keep his eyes from moving to the marked-up map that tracks their progress on the table.

The north is an area of red marks and crossed out lines-the land was overrun with monsters by the time Maka made it to where the magical barrier that kept Eibon separate from the witches' realm two years ago. Enemy witches took advantage of the chaos to create more rips in the barrier, which had left Wes and Soul in the south fighting on two fronts while Maka and the group of witches she traveled with worked to clear the north.

Operating in a war in such cramped quarters brought its own array of problems, all of which made Soul going to Maka impossible, and after his father died in the battle against Arachne, he refused to leave Wes on his own. Maka kept in touch through letters while the original three weeks they were supposed to be apart stretched into two years that felt more like an eternity.

"It's something that's coming, whether we like it or not." Wes leans forward to pick up the report. "Might as well be on our own terms rather than being cornered into it."

Soul laughs dryly. "That sounded almost like pessimism."

"Optimistically slanted pessimism," Wes corrects, smile fading as he looks at Soul. "You should try to get some sleep."

"Maybe after we win tomorrow," he answers, rising up anyways.

Wes raises an eyebrow. "Optimism from you?"

"One of us has to make the effort." Soul hesitates as he passes by him. "Good night, Wes."

He chuckles faintly. "I love you too, little brother."

SEPARATE

A hand clamps down on Soul's mouth as he enters his tend, silencing the yell halfway out of his mouth, a body pressing close to his back.

"Only me," hisses a voice he hasn't heard in years.

The hand drops as he whirls around. There are a few scrapes on her cheek, her hair is disheveled and she's a couple inches taller than when Soul saw her last but the smile Maka wears is the same. "Hi."

Soul's voice is somewhere stuck in his throat but he can move and he raises a hand to touch her cheek. It's the middle of winter but Maka's skin is warm and his thumb moves of its own accord, stroking her face.

Maka's smile turns amused but she leans into the touch. "Real enough for you?"

"How are you here?" he says finally.

"I'll take that as a hello." Maka wraps a hand around his and pulls him to the table next to his bed. "There were fewer breaks in the barrier lately. Less activity in general, actually so I got suspicious," she says once they're sitting. "I've been trying to get here for a while now but you're hard to find."

"Wes told me something similar earlier," Soul murmurs. He looks up. "Have you seen him yet?"

A slightly abashed look comes across her face. "I wanted to see you first."

"Well," he says after he untangles his tongue. "You're in time for the battle of our lives."

"I guessed as much from the activity in the camp," she answers lightly. "How soon?"

"Tomorrow."

Her eyes widen but the surprise on Maka's face is muted. "And then it's over."

"In one way or another."

"Not funny," she says, jabbing him in the arm. She exhales loudly after a moment. "I guess we should try to sleep then."

"Yes." He pauses. "Do you have somewhere to sleep?"

"No, but I'm sure I'll fi-"

"You can stay here," he blurts out. "If you want."

Maka's smile returns as she rubs the back of his hand with her thumb. "Only if you don't insist on sleeping on the floor."

SEPARATE

"There was something I wanted to ask you," Maka says when Soul is on the edge of sleep.

"About?" He scrubs at his eyes before opening them.

Beside him, Maka shifts before answering. "I was looking around while I waited for you and I saw this." The necklace he made years ago swings in her hand. "Is this supposed to be a soul?"

Soul stares at the necklace in horror. It had been one of the few things he saved from his room, though he still has no idea why he did. He'd brought it out since Maka's last letter had come a month ago and left it lying on his bed.

"Is it a soul?" Maka asks again.

With tomorrow fast approaching, Soul drowns out his doubt and summons his courage. "I made it for you," he mumbles to the ceiling. "It's your soul."

"Really?" Maka brings the necklace close to her face. "When did you make it?"

"When I was fourteen."

Maka frowns in disapproval. "So I could have worn it since then?"

"Do you want to wear it?" He dares to look at her directly. "I didn't think you'd like it."

"Well, I do." She twists her hand and two necklaces lay in her palm now and holds one out to Soul. "It's a pair now."

He lifts his head to put it on as Maka does the same. "I'm not taking it off," she says. She sounds sleepy now and tucks closer to Soul. "You'd better not either."

He laughs. "I won't."

SEPARATE

When it comes down to life for one and death for the other the next day, his choice is automatic.

He catches a flash of green around Maka's neck as he falls.

"A curse," Medusa spits when the dust clears and it's him dying on the ground and not Maka. "To follow you from this life into all of your others." Even though blood is trickling from her mouth in rivulets, her eyes glow with triumph.

And then the darkness from his nightmares pulls him in.


	3. Absquatulate

Absquatulate

Verb: the act of leaving without saying goodbye.

* * *

Death is silence, Maka has learned.

When her pet cat had gotten caught in a trap when she was seven, it had yowled and cried until Mabaa had put it out of its misery. The emptiness that followed as Maka watched the light of its soul fade was worse than the yells that had filled Mabaa's cabin seconds ago. After that, she quickly learned to avoid people when their souls started to flicker and beat unevenly, the only harbinger of the approaching silence only she and Mabaa could see (it was also then that she began to understand why soul magic regularly drove its users mad.)

But then Mabaa had moved them to the remote castle in the west, where the people around Maka hardly changed, something which eased the ache that sometimes came with seeing souls all the time.

When she first arrived, Maka stayed in the disguise that Mabaa made her to promise to wear till the treaty was signed until Maka had seen the boy with the darkened soul. Souls generally shined brightly, no matter what lay within them, or were completely consumed in darkness, like she had seen only once before, but his soul's light was dimmed like a new moon, blanketed but still pulsing. The mystery made it impossible not to follow the boy when she spotted him sneaking into the forest, though she hadn't said that when he caught her watching him.

Soul (she had never been been able to pry his real name out of him though she could have easily gotten it from Wes) had a soul that moved through phases, like the moon. Mostly, it stayed blanketed, with only a little light breaking through. Occasionally, it shone brightly like when he carried her in the forest after she twisted ankle; she could never look at him directly for long then.

And then were the rare times she found Soul caught in a nightmare and his soul shrouded in darkness. It was something she suspected happened more often than not but the edginess in Soul's voice and his tendency to change the subject had stymied her attempts to bring it up. It wasn't a choice she liked but she respected it, pulling him out of his mind when he got distant with distractions and conversation.

Then war had separated them and all she had of Soul were letters while she remembered what the dread of death's silence felt like.

War did not give Maka the same warnings of death like the ones she had seen in her childhood. When Mabaa died, the pulse of her soul had been loud in Maka's ears until it was not and Maka was alone. The same held true during the endless battles and skirmishes over the last four years; war, like life, was loud, from sparks hissing as witches from the lizard coven threw their flames to the rumble of the earth before the badger witches split the ground open. It was the abrupt quiet as both her allies and enemies' souls winked out that was much more jarring, however.

The fact that the absence of sound means absence of life is all but engraved in her mind as she stumbles to her feet after Medusa's arrow attack.

"Soul." Maka's words are thick on her tongue and she swings her head from side to side, ears ringing, no sign of Medusa or Soul anywhere.

Her steps are slow and faltering as her head clears, the shadow of the snake coven's castle falling on her making it hard to see much of anything. She grits her teeth against the sudden bolt of pain running from the gash in her shoulder and calls out for Soul while looking out for Medusa. The witch had ambushed them in an empty pocket at the edge of the battlefield; her arrow attacks had proven too strong for Maka's shields and she had been knocked off her feet, tasting unconsciousness before rolling on her side to get up.

From beyond comes the noises of the rest of the dying battle but it's too far away to be a concern, though she knows Wes will come looking for them eventually. It's only as she's about to call Soul's name again that Maka realizes it.

It's too quiet.

"No," she says to the silence.

Her heart goes cold as the silence slices through to her bones and she forces herself to move faster-no matter how horrific the deaths, the silence has never touched her before.

It is too late, she knows, when she finally spies Soul's body, still and pale. It is too late when she gasps his name and drops to the ground in front of him, begging her eyes to be wrong. It is too late when she hugs him to her chest, pressing her healing magic to him.

It is too late, she is too late, but it is all she can do and no matter how loud she cries and screams, the silence consumes.

* * *

There is a bleak fog that hangs over the camp as people attend to the wounded and account for the dead-too many have died for their victory to be a celebration.

Maka sits in front of the fire in the middle of the camp, staring into the embers blankly. Numbness has replaced silence; she hardly registers the blanket that gets thrown over her shoulders.

From across the fire is Wes' tent, positioned among the tents of the other lords and ladies. He found her shortly after she'd come across Soul's body and had been the one to pull her away from him.

She can't imagine how Wes feels, how he felt seeing his brother on the ground, but at the same time, she can't find the will to move. Talking to anyone about what happened will make it real, though the distant voice from the back of her mind repeating _he's dead he's dead he's dead_ over and over reminds her that it's real whether she talks about it or not.

The only thing Maka is able to do is twist her necklace in her hand mindlessly. She'd nearly taken Soul's necklace as Wes was pulling her up but then she'd remembered their promise from last night.

Something stings at the corner of her eyes but she wills it away, sinking into surreal denial. It's impossible for her mind to process the Soul from last night-laughing, warm and alive-alongside the one from today-motionless, cold and dead.

And it was her fault, a not-so-distant voice screams at her. If she hadn't insisted on taking on Medusa, Soul would have never had to take the brunt of the attack Medusa aimed at her and he would still be alive. Objectively, she knows she's wrong-Medusa would have pursued them if they had ran but anger at herself is easier to feel than the pain needling at every inch of her body.

"Sad day." A shadow by the fire blinks and Maka turns her head towards it, vaguely recognizing the cat familiar.

When Maka doesn't answer, the cat hops up on the log she sits on. "Happy day too."

Her fingers curl. "I don't want to talk, if that isn't obvious."

"I lost my witch just like how you lost your human," the cat sniffs. "I'm trying to look on the bright side of things."

"He wasn't my human," Maka says sharply, glaring at the cat. "He was my friend."

"Seemed more than that by the way you talked about him," the cat replies, licking her paw.

"Who are you?"

"Clara was my witch," the cat says by way of explanation.

The name rings familiar. "We worked in the north for a few months," she recalls. "You're Blair."

"Naturally," the cat answers.

Maka sighs. "Isn't there any cat witches you can go bother?"

"If any of them were alive, yes."

"Oh." Maka looks back at the fire. "I'm sorry."

"This isn't my first life," Blair says with a dismissive wave of her tail. "They'll be back in a century or so."

Visions of a conversation she had with Soul about reincarnation cloud Maka's vision. "Is that how long reincarnation takes?"

"Give or take a century."

The slim hope that she might be able to find Soul again in this life dies-she wasn't born with the longevity that some witches have. "Wonderful."

"Though your human's soul might have rotted away by the time you do find him," Blair muses as she swats at a moth. "It was a monster of a curse Medusa put on him."

Maka's blood runs cold. "What do you mean?"

"Cats see curses," Blair says, rising and stretching. "And I have never seen a curse as big as the one that was placed on your human. Souls can't bear that kind of burden for many lives."

The cat yowls as Maka picks her up. She ignores the angry bat that Blair swipes at her hand. "What do you mean?" she demands. "What curse?"

"I can't tell what kind it is," Blair answers, writhing in Maka's hands. "All I know is that it's a curse with no end. The kind of curse that wears down on the soul until there's nothing left."

Maka leaps to her feet. "I can't let that happen to him." She raises Blair to her face. "How do I help him?"

"You can't." The cat stops struggling. "Not if you want to keep your powers."

"I don't care about that," Maka says in a hiss. "How can I save him?"

Blair stares at her for a minute before finally rolling her golden eyes. "Go pack up your things, you're going to need it."

* * *

Maka frowns in confusion as Blair takes her through the remnants of Medusa's castle. "Why are you taking me here?"

Blair swishes her tail as she jumps over the wreckage of a snake statue. "You'll see."

The answer makes Maka grit her teeth but she follows the cat, pulling her pack's straps to make sure it's securely fastened.

It hadn't taken much work to sneak out of the camp-there was too much to deal with to notice a lone witch disappearing off with a cat familiar. Still, she looks over her shoulder from time to time, eyeing the tall shadows on the walls.

"Here it is," announces Blair after several minutes of walking down a maze of hallways.

The doors sag inwards and the golden snakes are covered in dust but Maka recognizes where she is. "Why here?"

"Come on." Blair fits herself in the gap that broken doors have created. "We have to see if it still works."

"See if what works?" grunts Maka as she wedges herself into the gap. It takes a few minutes of strained effort but she finally makes it through, breathing heavily.

Blair is already halfway down the stone path and she jogs to catch up, not catching her breath until the cat comes to an abrupt stop. Inhaling deeply, Maka looks at the well that she and Soul had leaned against as they gazed at the stars four years ago.

She ignores the pang in chest. "This? It's only a well."

"A well that leads to the depths of time and space," corrects Blair. "This will take you where you need to go."

Maka peers into the inside of the well, catching the iridescent gleaming of stardust that she had first seen when Medusa had taken her here. "I thought it was only a myth perpetuated by magic."

Blair gives her what she thinks is a smile. "We'll all be myths one day."

"Fine." Maka swallows, clenching her hands. "What do I do?"

"First, you need to offer up your magic," Blair says, leaping up on the edge of the well's wall.

"I do."

"Not like that," she says impatiently. "You need to offer it with something precious to you."

Immediately, Maka's hand goes to her necklace. She hesitates in taking it off, however.

"Go on," Blair urges. "It'll be alright."

Slowly, Maka takes off the necklace and holds it over the well. She closes her eyes as she drops the necklace. "I offer my magic."

"Look," hisses Blair. "I told you it'd be okay."

Maka opens her eyes and sees the necklace floating in the air; inside of it shimmers the same stardust that she spied at the bottom of the well. "What is this?"

"Your magic." Blair stands and begins to circle the well's edge. "Every time you use it, the well will take some of it. When it runs out, that's the life you're stuck in."

Maka continues to stare at the necklace as it dangle in the air.

"Get it," Blair says. "The necklace will be your portal when you can no longer access the well. Flip it three times to return to the inside of the well."

The glass soul pulses like a heartbeat in Maka's hands as she wraps her fingers around it. As soon as she is sure of her hold, she yanks her hand back and pulls on the necklace in one motion, breathing out a sigh of relief. "How do you know all of this?"

"Cats have many lives," the cat states simply. "And very good memories."

"How does it feel to be reborn?" she asks.

Blair sees through her question. "To you, it will feel like eternity has stretched out its weight on your skin. But to him, it will be nothing more than a moment." For the first time since they met, she hesitates. "If you use all of your magic, you're giving up the rest of your lives, you know."

"You're saying that like I'm going to change my mind." Maka pulls herself up on the stones of the well's wall, balancing herself carefully.

"You _can_ still turn back."

Maka smiles at the cat. "Thank you for your help."

With a deep breath, she steps off the ledge.

* * *

It feels like she's falling into the dark, vacant spaces between the stars, plummeting into nothing and everything.

Eventually, she becomes aware of the millions of souls weaving invisibly throughout the darkness. They glimmer like tiny stars under the power of her soul perception and for a long time, she listens.

When she hears his soul, seconds or eons later, she breathes out and opens her eyes.

For a second, she sees him, just ahead of her and reaching out his hand.

Maka stares at Soul, breathless.

Just before their hands touch and everything turns black, she thinks she hears him call her name.


	4. Part 2-1

Part Two

* * *

There is ink boiling in his veins, slowly killing Soul from the inside out.

He would thrash and fight if it wasn't for the giant snake coiling around his body. Next to him, a tiny demon with ebony eyes croons in his ear as he suffocates. _Together forever, forever together, isn't it wonderful, Soul boy?_

When he opens his mouth to answer, ink flows from his lips until it is running over his body and then it swiftly begins to write his flaws on his skin. The snake and demon have disappeared somehow but he's still paralyzed, feeling the curve of every word as they etch themselves into his skin like he's engraved them in his mind.

He waits to die but the words continue to write themselves until half of his body is dripping in ink and still he feels the itch of the words against his skin and he would scream but there is only silence, silence, SILEN-

Soul's alarm goes off, unceremoniously ripping him from his nightmare and plunging him into hell.

Eyes flying open, Soul looks around wildly before slumping back into the mattress, resting his arm on his forehead and breathing heavily. Hell looks like his brother's summer apartment but he refuses to let the pleasant teal walls and cream curtains fool him. He watches the shadows on the ceiling, waits for them to come alive and pulls his blanket over his face when they don't, a hollow feeling gradually replacing the rush of adrenaline pounding through his body.

Soul stares at the semi-darkness, alarm still blaring in his ears, until he's sure he won't throw up like last time and then he sits up carefully. There's still a tremor in his hands as he reaches for his phone and knocks over his anxiety medication, which promptly rolls under his nightstand.

He leaves it there-it will do more good keeping the dust bunnies company than it does him anyways.

With a poke that is probably harder than it should be, he turns off his alarm and with a fluid swipe, he ignores the two missed calls from Wes and the assorted array of text messages. It's been three days since he summoned the energy to send out hasty, stilted messages to his last batch of missed calls and texts so he figures he has at least one more day till Wes threatens set the cavalry on him in the form of Black Star, who has no qualms about breaking and entering.

Dimly, he registers that he has less than ten minutes to get to work; a part of him is alarmed but a larger part of him is not and he nearly flops back in bed. Being a failed musical prodigy whose cocktail of mental illnesses sent him into a flaming burn-out in his third year of college doesn't have perks but he supposes the part-time job his godfather offered him a week after his mental collapse would be the closest to one.

Admittedly, accepting such a job was something his pride would never let Soul do but pride is not something he has in spades these days. The mortification over hitting rock-bottom so spectacularly is gone too, swallowed by the emptiness in his chest. Feeling anything is a rarity these days and he's not sure if he should be grateful or not.

He blows out a breath. His thoughts are hitting a downward spiral and if he lets that happen, then he'll end up calling in sick so he can stare at the ceiling until someone calls to make sure he hasn't died.

Taking a deep breath, Soul hauls himself to the bathroom with the air of a condemned prisoner, touching everything to make sure that everything is real and that one of his nightmares hasn't followed him into reality again.

He saves himself for last, eyeing his reflection in the mirror before raising a hand to his face.

He frowns.

Real.

* * *

Every time Maka finds him, Soul looks worse.

It's a truth she stops denying herself when she reaches his seventh life and just misses him again.

In the well, it was easy to find Soul with her soul perception, even if it took ages. But he became lost in the world with every life Maka followed him into and the world was a large place to search through to find a single person.

She'd caught more than a glimpse of Soul in that life, however, seen his face before the curse consumed him in ball of black blood, though he hadn't seen her. His soul was already beginning to erode underneath the weight of the curse, ink black starting to drip over the natural shadow of his soul. Medusa's specialties laid in illusion and poison and her curse combined the two in a way Maka had never seen before.

Magic keeps her age frozen to what it was when Maka leapt into the well but it drains her necklace in tiny increments, along with the magic it takes to pass back into the world again. The life she'd watched him die again had been the closest she has ever made it to Soul, name halfway out of her mouth before Maka was suddenly and abruptly alone again. Every other life she was too late, sometimes by seconds, sometimes by years. The times when she was just barely too late and she's able to feel as his soul returns to the soft darkness of the well are the worst kind of agony.

Still, she returns to the well again and again. Blair wasn't lying when she'd said falling through the well would feel like eternity stretched out on her skin; there had been a long while between Soul's fifth and sixth lives that Maka had nearly forgotten everything and she was only been a name chasing a name. Her saving grace was in the moment she'd briefly caught up to Soul. Like the first time she'd caught up with Soul, Maka saw him again and her memories had come flooding back as Soul had reached for her.

Though the last time she saw Soul in the well, he'd looked at her like she was a stranger. It's something Maka puts out of her mind as she re-enters the world for the thirteenth time.

Maka opens her eyes and looks around herself after she feels her feet touch solid ground, blinking in the sudden daylight and standing in an alley of a shopping district. The buzz of the city is similar to the last time she'd come back, which was New York City in the 1940's, but the items flashing from the window displays are foreign, shiny and bright, while the cars whizzing by on the street are less boxy, sleeker and streamlined.

She glances down at herself and then at the people passing by. Her double buttoned tweed coat, with its shoulder padding and her nylon stockings, will make her stick out like a sore thumb. She eyes the clothes sitting in the window displays and the passing crowd for a minute before backing further into the alley.

It takes longer than usual before Maka's clothes transform to the vision she has in her head. She's breathing harder when the transformation finishes and she walks out of the alley, studying her reflection in a store window. A bright pink dress that falls just above her knees and a light blue jacket with yellow stars on the shoulders replaces her coat while socks matching her jacket take the place of her stockings. Instead of the leather purse that she carried, a blue and pink backpack with angel wings sewn on the top rests in her hands.

As she catches her breath, Maka's gaze moves to her necklace, lifting up the glass soul to her face. After so many lives, her magic is nearing empty-it takes all of her power to cast anything more than simple magic, her soul perception the only part of her magic that's stayed strong. It's unlikely she'll have enough magic for more than one more life after this and she frowns, shoving away the thought before it can grow bigger.

Closing her eyes, she focuses on her perception and feels the world fade away. It's still overwhelming to be in an area where the number of souls is heavy and concentrated-there's easily over two million souls in this city alone-but practice has tempered the instinct to withdraw and she breathes in and out slowly, reaching out into the soulspace.

Something heavy bumps into her back and she jolts forward, catching herself. A voice grunts, "Watch it," but Maka hardly registers anything but what she'd sensed.

Swinging her backpack onto her shoulder, Maka begins to walk quickly. _Close,_ her mind chimes at her over and over again.

Soul was close.

* * *

"You're lucky you're my favorite godson," Stein says without looking up as Soul walks nearly an hour after his shift started.

The customer Stein is ringing up looks at him in confusion as Soul ducks underneath the partition that separates the customers from the kitchen. "I'm your only godson," he says as he grabs his delivery hat from the hook on the wall.

"That does nothing to change my last statement," he replies, handing the customer his pizza and receipt.

"I'm honored." The bell attached to the shop door gives a little ring as the customer leaves the shop. He pokes his head into the kitchen. "Any deliveries?"

"Black Star has you covered on deliveries." Stein takes off his apron. "Kid is coming in for the afternoon shift but I need you here for the rest of the morning."

A shadow unfurls itself from the wall just as Soul opens his mouth to answer and he snaps it shut quickly, nails digging into his hat as he pulls it off.

Stein's eyebrow raises a centimeter. "What, no objections? I thought you hated working the store."

"No, no," Soul mutters, turning away and fixating on a spot just above Stein's head. A knot forms in his stomach as the shadows drags itself sideways across the wall and back into his view. "I know you and Marie are busy with baby stuff," he adds, grinding his heel into the floor to keep his calm. "Another appointment?"

"Every two weeks till Marie hits the nine month mark." There is suspicion in Stein's eyes, never a good sign. He says nothing else, however, and pulls out a cigarette from his pocket and puts it in his mouth without lighting it.

Soul nods toward the cigarette. "Breaking the habit is going well, I take it."

"About as well as a dissecting a pig with a fork."

"You've done that before."

"Yes, but I never said it was easy." He leaves the cigarette in his mouth for another moment before he pulls it out and tosses it into the trashcan next to the register.

"At least you're trying," Soul says. He swallows as the shadow drapes itself on Stein's shoulders; it has a mouth now.

"That's what Marie tells me." Stein takes no notice as the shadow's mouth envelopes his head. "And you?"

Soul works to simultaneously unglue his tongue and bite back his scream, hands pressed tightly to his sides. "Me what?"

"Are you trying?" Soul can still see Stein through the shadow but his teeth are fangs now.

He drops his gaze to the ground-he's going to lose his head if he has to stare at Stein for one more second. "I'm here."

"You are," Stein agrees and Soul feels a distant twist of his stomach in lieu of guilt. Stein had had his own share of screw-ups running up till five years ago when his medical license was revoked, which was probably why he had been the quickest after Wes to scoop Soul up from the ashes of his self-destruction. His tiny pizza shop was something he'd built from scratch and the fact that Stein hired Soul instead of someone actually competent was not lost on him, even in the middle of the constant fog that clouds his brain.

"I also ate breakfast."

"That is the most important meal of the day." Stein holds out the shop keys and when Soul raises his head to accept them, the shadow is gone. "Should we still count you as a yes for the baby shower?"

"I always said I was a tentative maybe." Hallucinations tend to present themselves more often when he's around a lot of people and he'd prefer not to make an idiot of himself in front of one of the few people who looks at him with something other than pity.

"Call me an optimist," Stein drawls, heading to the door. "Your brother already said he'd be there."

He represses a scowl and jabs his key into the register. "Then you know Wes will strongarm me into coming."

"I thought it good etiquette to give you the illusion of a choice." Stein tosses a wave over his shoulder. "Don't forget to leave the keys with Kid."

Soul lifts his hand and watches as Stein moves out of sight. He stares only at the counter once he's gone, letting his hand drop onto it with a faint thump. None of the other shadows had shown signs of life but he takes no chances, touching everything before he looks at it directly.

Even in the midst of his precautions, his fear is muffled, nearly nonexistent. Soul acts only how he thinks he should feel these days, nightmares and unexpected hallucinations being two of the few exceptions. When Stein had announced Marie's pregnancy nearly eight months ago, it had taken him too long and too much effort to smile and offer his congratulations. And he can never talk to Wes for more than a few minutes when he calls-he is much more adept in detecting Soul's facades than Soul is at making them.

It would be nice not to only feel only in reaction and even then only in faded echoes but Soul can't even bring himself to force frustration-that ability had died shortly after the rest of emotions.

In a quiet corner in his mind, he knows the reason for everything that's happened is because he has been fighting his whole life something much stronger than he is or ever could be. The closest he has come to identifying it is the little demon and the snake that plague his dreams but they're not quite it, though he doesn't know why he's so sure of that.

What Soul does know is he is tired.

That's how he should feel, anyways.

* * *

"One game," wheedles Black Star as he blocks Soul's exit from the shop. The tips of his bright blue hair, crafted into spikes that gives his hair a starlike appearance, quiver. "You owe me."

Soul tucks his helmet under his arm. "Friends don't owe each other anything. That's why it's called friendship."

"Then you're not my friend."

"Even more reason to not listen to you." Soul attempts to duck around Black Star but he's too fast for him.

"Black Star, let him go," murmurs Kid from behind the counter without looking up from his research notebook. "If he doesn't want to play basketball today, he doesn't have to."

As the son of the wealthiest entrepreneur in Death City, Kid has no reason to be working at the shop like Black Star and Soul but his business seminar required him study a business model of his own choosing and present a project Soul had not paid much attention to when Kid had explained it. Why he had chosen Stein's shop when Kid had his father's assortment of businesses at his disposal was still a mystery to Soul.

"You promised." Black Star ignores Kid, frowning at Soul. "We can't play two on two unless there are actually four people."

"I'm sure you'll make an excellent one-man team."

Black Star's frown deepens. "You're getting weirder, you know?"

"So I've been told."

Kid looks up this time. "Black Star, do you have no tact at all?"

"I don't raise horses," he answers, not taking his eyes off of Soul. Anyone would be intimidated by DCU's wrestling star but Soul had grown up with Black Star-the look he wears when he wants to intimidate someone is the same one he makes before he sneezes.

Eventually, Black Star moves to one side. "You're not getting out of it next time," he warns like he always does.

"I'll keep that in mind," Soul says as he always does.

As the door swings shut, he hears Kid say, "I'll convince Liz to play with us."

Vaguely, Soul supposes he feels guilty as he gets on his motorcycle, the one thing his parents hadn't reclaimed from him when he dropped out of college though he thoroughly suspects Wes had something to do with it. He and Black Star had a tradition of playing basketball every Friday since they were kids, a habit Kid had surprisingly fit in with easily when he began working at Stein's shop, sometimes pulling in Liz and Patti, a pair of two sisters he'd known since high school, to play with them.

He's stopped going with them for the last month, though.

There is no direction that Soul takes as he roams through the city. It's too early to go home and be alone with his thoughts; when Wes comes back next month from his tour with his orchestra in Europe, it might be different but for now he wanders Death City.

He stays on his bike mostly but Death City is well over three hundred years old and occasionally he stops to study a particularly interesting building. Soul's not sure how looking at old architecture became a hobby of his but the hunt for a new structure to gaze at and sometimes sketch on whatever paper he carries is the only thing that fills him halfway with peace nowadays.

It's only when it touches twilight that Soul realizes how long it's been since he last ate and he stops at a hot dog stand nestled to a walking bridge that runs over the highway leading out of the city. However, he doesn't return to the bike after he finishes eating, going to the bridge instead.

The bridge is empty, the darkness creeping across the city making the bridge a prime place for mugging. Soul stops nearly midway through and gazes down at the cars whizzing past.

There's a tingling sensation in his hands that is as much a warning as a temptation as he presses them against the glass barrier. He's not going to do anything though a voice whispers that he could just call his parents if he really wanted to change his mind. The barrier stretches up all around him, but still he can't keep himself from wondering what it would feel like to fall through the air before the world goes permanently dark in a flurry of red brake lights and screeching tires.

Logic stops him from dwelling on other measures, like it always does when his mind edges too close to the extreme. Wes would be heartbroken, Stein would be out of a delivery boy, Black Star would have to find a new basketball partner and no one would know how to take care of his bike, which was possibly the most unacceptable thing of all.

His fingers drift to the chain around his neck, hand wrapping around the tiny green soul that stays on him always. He doesn't know how he knows that the oddly shaped glass circle is a soul but it's what comes to mind every time he looks at it. In the rare times that logic fails Soul, it's the necklace that grounds him. It is his anchor in recovering from nightmares and hallucinations too, though he uses it sparingly these days.

He winds the chain with a couple quick twists and watches as the spinning glass catches the dying light, twisting the chain in the opposite direction when the soul stops. Soul's not sure how he got the necklace-his mother claimed he found it on the sidewalk one day while his father said he'd bought it at an old antique shop. Regardless of where the necklace came from, there has never been a time he can remember that he's been without it as far and never a time when the necklace failed to comfort him.

"Soul!"

His name rips him from his thoughts and he catches a pair of green eyes the exact shade of his necklace before a body slams into him.

Arms wrap around him, squeezing him too tightly. "I found you!"


	5. Part 2-2

Maka's eyes fly open as Soul tears himself away. "Who are you?"

Shock buffers the sting of his rejection. Maka's arms are still raised and when she speaks, her voice doesn't even make it to a whisper. "Soul?"

There's nothing but confusion in his face as Soul looks at Maka. "I'm sorry," he says. "I don't know you."

Her hands drop as she takes back a step. Soul didn't know her.

Soul didn't remember her.

"But maybe you mean my brother?" he says when she doesn't answer, scratching the back of his neck. "We kind of look alike when it's dark."

"I mean, anyone looks alike in the dark," he says quickly. "You're actually not the first to confuse us, though it might be the first time someone has mixed up our names-" He breaks off, shaking his head. "Anyways, Wes is in Europe but he'll back in a few weeks. You'll probably be able to catch him at the symphony, he loves giving autographs."

The mention of Wes cuts through her shock. "Wes?"

"World-famous violin prodigy?" Soul prompts. "Currently touring as one of the first violins with the London Symphony Orchestra?"

"Right," she says faintly. She looks away to the streets below. The highways have gotten increasingly more crowded and complex since the last time she had come back to the world and in the distance she spots two moderately wrecked cars pulled over on the shoulder of the highway.

There's a shift of movement in the corner of her eye as Soul steps closer. "You look lost."

Maka looks at Soul. His soul is more than half-covered by the black blood but it still pulses with the same familiar beat. The sudden ache in her heart thrums to the same rhythm. She swallows, hand moving to her necklace. "I suppose I am."

"I-" Soul pauses as he follows her gaze down and then his eyes fly back to her face. "Where did you get that?"

The pang in her chest travels to Maka's eyes. "It was made for me."

"Oh." Soul's expression falls and he hesitates before pointing to the necklace hanging around his neck. "I've never been able to find who made mine so when I saw yours-"

The jolt of surprise Maka feels at seeing the copy of her necklace around Soul's neck isn't nearly as large as discovering he doesn't remember her but she still starts at the sight. Magical items were known for sometimes following their owners but she hadn't thought that meant through different lives.

"There was one other when I was given mine," she says finally. "It was meant for someone special."

Soul's hands fidget with themselves before he starts to take the necklace off. "Maybe you should take it the-"

"No!" Maka reaches out without thinking, stopping his hand.

She freezes as she looks up at Soul-he is identical to how he looked in their first life, which makes the fact that he doesn't remember her cut deeply in her heart.

Her mind flashes back to how he reacted to her touch the first time and she pulls back, looking away. "The person who it was meant for died," Maka says quietly. "But I don't think they'd mind that you have it."

"Oh." Soul bounces awkwardly on the balls of his toes, clamping his hands together. "Were they important to you?"

"Very." She pauses before pushing as far as she'll dare. "It was the same person who made them."

"That...sucks," finishes Soul lamely. "I'm sorry." He gestures at the necklace. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

"The one that I have is enough." Her heart starts to race as Maka hears the change in Soul's tone. It was the same tone he adopted when he tried to wheedle his way out of talking with a particularly pushy courtier.

"If you're sure."

"I am."

Soul shoves his hands in his pockets, exhaling. "Well, it was nice meeting you-?"

"Maka," she fills in. A knot of nervous dread twists in her stomach. She's found Soul but he's still leaving. He wears her necklace but she is nothing in his memory. And even after saying her name, there is nothing in his eyes but distant politeness.

"Maka," he repeats. "I hope you find who you were looking for."

"Thank you." She watches as he walks away, searching for something to say that will make him stay but her mind comes up with nothing.

Maka turns back to the highway but her vision is blurry. She swipes angrily at her eyes. Assuming Soul would remember her or any of his past lives was foolish but she'd been so focused on finding Soul for so long that she hadn't stopped to think about what he would be like when she did find him.

Sucking in quick breaths, Maka presses the heels of her palms against her eyes. How was she supposed to save him when he didn't even remember her?

"You said you were lost." Soul's voice makes her jump. He stands a few feet away, wearing an uncertain expression. "Are you new here?"

She clears her throat but her voice still wavers. "In a way."

Soul is silent for a few moments. "Do you have a place to stay?"

* * *

Considering his past year, inviting a stranger into his brother's apartment is not the lowest Soul can sink but it is still ranks somewhere on the lower rungs of the ladder of being a capable and responsible adult.

The motorcycle idles as they wait at a stoplight and Soul moves his head slightly, studying Maka from the corner of his eye. He'd insisted she use his helmet so there's not much he can see of her face, though he does catch the gleam of her eyes reflecting the lights of the city.

He turns back quickly, twisting his head in the other direction as if to check the incoming traffic. When the light changes, he takes off slowly-Maka does not have her arms wrapped around him but instead keeps a tentative grip on the back of his jacket.

He opens his mouth to say she can hold on tighter before swallowing his words. Although Maka accepted his offer, it didn't mean she didn't have personal boundaries-the only reason that she had thrown her arms around him was because she'd mistook him for someone else.

Though he still holds out his hand when they park in front of Wes' apartment building; Maka hesitates when he does and Soul nearly drops his hand, apology already on the tip of his tongue, but then she takes it, hops off the motorcycle and smoothes out her skirt.

Soul presses his palms together as Maka brushes a pigtail behind her shoulder, the glass soul glinting with something shimmery.

He wants to take a closer look but she speaks. "Is this your house?"

"Not all of it," he answers. "Just the top." They begin to walk towards the building and he dances awkwardly for a minute as he decides how much space he should leave between them, eventually settling on the width of another person. "And it's my brother's place."

They're quiet on the elevator, which continues as he leads Maka down the hallway and into the apartment. Maka enters first, looking around the living room. Her eyes light up when she spies the piano sitting in front of the dining room window and she turns to him eagerly. "You play?"

The dissonant clash of notes bouncing off the walls last time he played echoes in Soul's ears. "Not anymore."

His answer seems to surprise Maka and she looks like she wants to say more but instead she nods, holding tightly to her backpack.

Soul clears his throat. "There's a guest bedroom on the left," he says, leading her to the hallway by the kitchen. "It has its own bathroom too."

He can't read the expression on Maka's face as she nods. "Thank you."

Giving an awkward nod of his own, Soul gestures to his bedroom on the right. "I'll be on the right, if you need anything." His eyes widen as he realizes how his words sound. "The shower faucet can get stuck sometimes so if you need help with showering-"

He cuts himself off before he makes his life more of a burning catastrophe than it already is. "I'll be in my room."

"I appreciate it." Maka peers up at his face until he meets her eyes. "Good night, Soul."

There is something familiar in the way that his name curls on her tongue; the same familiarity had buzzed on Soul's skin when she had touched his hand. It sets a dull ache in his heart that isn't completely unpleasant.

Soul turns towards his room. "Good night."

* * *

Maka wakes up before Soul does; she breathes in and out slowly in the cool light of the morning, reaching out to the room next to her with her soul perception.

His soul does not beat as steadily as it did yesterday, stuttering every so often, but it's not the frantic rhythm of his nightmares. She rises from the bed, stretching, before she heads into the bathroom.

She frowns at her reflection in the mirror as she washes her hands. It hardly looks like she slept at all and her hair is poking up in almost every direction, which she immediately sets to fixing.

Maka's finished tightening her second pigtail when a loud noise comes from Soul's room. Her heart leaps in her throat as she senses the change in his soulbeat, visions of Soul being consumed by the black blood flooding her mind.

It breaks the self-restraint Maka's imposed on herself as she pounds on his door. "Soul!"

The door opens after a minute and Maka catches a glimpse of a messy room and a bed with half of its sheets kicked off. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." Soul rubs his face with one hand. The shadows under his eyes are darker in the sunlight and his skin has a permanent pallidness to it. "I knocked over a glass. Everything's fine."

Soul might not remember the life they shared or his other lives but there are scars in his gaze that span lifetimes. Maka keeps her hands from clenching as she stares up at him. "But are you okay?"

For a moment, the expression on Soul's face clears and when he looks at Maka, it's as if he remembers her. Then he blinks and the recognition is gone. "Everything's fine," he repeats. "Did I wake you up?"

Maka looks away. Soul's eyes are the same rich crimson of his first life, though she doesn't know if he hates them now like he did then. "I'm fine."

"Good." His fingers drum against the door hinge in the way he does when he's nervous and he coughs. "I have to go to work soon but are you hungry?"

"I can go." It's the last thing she wants to say but she knows that his offer had only been for the night, even if he hadn't said so.

"No!" She blinks and even Soul looks a little surprised at himself for how quickly he answers. He runs a hand through his hair. "I don't cook much but we can grab a bite to eat not too far from here."

She quashes the somersault her heart makes. "I would like that."

There's something that looks strangely like relief in Soul's face but she can't be certain. "Let me get ready."

* * *

Maka examines the food in her hands. "And you call this what again?"

"Breakfast burrito," says Soul as he unwraps his sandwich. "Have you tried one before?"

"No."

"And?" he asks as she takes a bite.

Her eyes widen and she swallows. "It's good," she says. "Can we get another?"

A corner of his mouth twitches and he pushes the glass of orange juice towards her. "If you're still hungry after you're done."

"Fair answer," she says as she takes another bite. They lapse into silence and Maka steals peeks at Soul as they eat. He looks better than he did in the apartment, though it's not saying much; he carries himself with an exhaustion that can't be solved by sleep, something she only saw occasionally in their first life.

She's quiet for another moment. "How does your sandwich taste?"

He blinks and then he shrugs. "It's fine."

The word irritates her more than it should. "Is there anything that isn't fine?"

Soul looks a little taken aback but when he answers, there is a familiar mock bite to his voice. "Well, the fact that I'm fifteen minutes late for work is not fine."

"Really?" She pushes away her burrito. "We should go then."

"I said it wasn't fine but it _is_ okay," Soul says quickly. "You can finish your breakfast."

He waits till Maka takes another bite before he speaks again. "So what brought you to Death City in the first place?"

Maka pretends the name of the city isn't new to her. "I was looking for someone," she answers as she reaches for her glass, unable to look at Soul. "But they're gone."

Soul picks at the crust of his sandwich. "Is it who you thought I was?"

"Yes." She sets down the glass with more care than necessary.

There is a pause. "Are they gone or _gone_?"

The taste in her mouth turns bitter. "The latter." She speaks before he can offer any condolences. "And you?" she asks. "Did you move to here too?"

"Not quite." A brittleness settles in his eyes. "I grew up here, though I left for college a few years back."

"Oh, did you graduate already?" she asks interestedly, looking up. Maka has never gotten close enough to Soul in any of his previous lives to get to know him and her curiosity is overwhelming. "What was your major?"

Soul stiffens. "Music theory," he mutters. "I didn't graduate."

Maka bites back her surprise as well as the words of comfort that springs to her lips. They had never helped Soul when he gave what he felt was a disappointing performance in his first life. "But you played the piano?" she asks.

"I tried the clarinet first but the piano was what stuck with me." He nods to Maka. "How about you?"

"College was too..traditional for me," she says, hoping her nervousness doesn't bleed through in her voice. She chooses a semi-truth instead of lying herself into a rambling mess. "I traveled too much to get into anything but I read every book in my library when I was younger."

"Your library?" An eyebrow lifts in mild surprise. "So you're a fellow rich kid too."

"Not quite," she says, shaking her head. "My guardian worked for a wealthy family. She taught me mostly but the library helped a lot." She neglects to mention that it was his family's library that she had read. "I was best friends with one of the family's sons," she adds, staring at the space above Soul's shoulder. "He snuck me in and brought me books when he couldn't."

There's no sign of recognition on Soul's face as he processes her words. "Guardian," he says slowly. "You're an orphan?"

Pink tints his face as he stumbles over himself. "You don't have to answer that," he says in a rush. "I'm sor-"

"It's okay." Maka waves away his words. "My father couldn't take care of me," she says, guilt pricking the back of her neck that she can't explain it was due to her magic. "And my mother left when I was six."

She grits her teeth as she finds herself rapidly blinking away the tears stinging at her eyes. It feels silly to be hurt over something that occurred over a millennium ago but she had never allowed herself to grieve when it happened and was too busy trying to find Soul to think about it in the time since.

Soul holds out an unused napkin. "I can turn around, if you want."

"No need." Maka presses at the inner corners of her eyes and sucks in a breath. "All better."

He gives her a skeptical look but doesn't press it. "How is your guardian?"

She smiles. "One of the best teachers I ever had."

"Did she move with you?"

"Um." Maka fiddles with the napkin, throat closing again. "She died."

"Shit, I'm sorry." Soul looks like he wants to reach out but he clamps his hands together instead. "I swear I'm not trying to make you cry."

"I'd hope not." She tries to keep her voice light. "I think about her everyday and that's enough."

There's silence and then Soul speaks again. "So you're alone then."

Maka gives him a mock glare. "I thought you were trying not to make me cry."

"Not that kind of alone," he says hastily. "I was just-" He breaks off and stares into his coffee as if it'll speak for him.

Soul looks up. "Do you want to come to work with me?"

* * *

After his shift, Soul stops by a row of shops on the way back to the apartment and Maka cranes her head up to look at the signs, frowning in confusion. "Why are we stopping here?"

"Short-lived surprise," he answers, glancing at Maka. "I should only be a minute, mind watching the bike?"

She nods and watches as he disappears into a store, crossing her arms and leaning against the motorcycle. Maka's fingers tap against her arms as she thinks about the day.

There wasn't much time to talk during the time that Soul delivered pizzas, which she had been fascinated to watch him make with Stein when they returned to the shop. When he hadn't been making pizzas, he was taking customers' orders, which hadn't left room to talk.

She'd filled the time by talking to his boss and his fellow delivery boy, both of whom she liked. Stein was reticent and slightly eccentric with his questions to Maka about various species' anatomy but mostly he had shown her pictures of his unborn baby, which she'd had to fight herself not to ask how such a picture was made. Meanwhile Black Star spoke enough for a dozen people, his blue hair a rather daring shade. She'd been a bit alarmed when he spoke of defeating God until she learned he was talking about a video game, though she had no idea what that was.

From time to time, Soul had jumped in, usually when Black Star was being too pushy. But there was a silence about him; she'd felt it when they were talking but it'd become obvious at the shop. He dodged the questions Stein aimed at him while they kneaded pizza dough with short non-answers and ducked away from the playful jab Black Star gave him as a goodbye. His soul flickers like a mirage dissipating in the sun and it fills Maka with a sharp kind of dread to see how quickly the curse has consumed him.

She has no idea what telling Soul about the curse will do, whether it will speed it up or swallow him whole right away. She has no idea what she's doing in general, a voice from the back of her mind reminds her. Following Soul may not be a decision Maka regrets but it was an impulsive one and breaking curses the magnitude of Medusa's is something Mabaa never taught her.

Approaching footsteps prompts her to raise her head and she sees Soul walking towards her, brand-new helmet in hand. "It has wings," he says when he reaches Maka, holding it out.

She takes the helmet, painted a glossy black, and runs a hand over the white wings embossed on the sides. "I saw the wings on your backpack and figured you'd like them on a helmet too," Soul says as Maka continues to examine the helmet. "We can take it back if you don't like it and choose another but safety is imp-"

"I love it," she says, interrupting him. The helmet speaks of permanence, even if it's not the kind she thought of, and a quiet hope fills her heart as she pulls it on.

"Oh." Soul blinks. "Good."

Adjusting the straps isn't as easy as Soul had demonstrated in the morning, however, and she huffs in frustration.

"Here." Soul moves closer, guiding her fingers. There is a heat that courses through Maka at his touch and she desperately hopes Soul isn't able to see through the visor how much her cheeks have reddened.

Soul doesn't step back when he's done, meeting her eyes. He studies her for a moment, like he's searching for something, before he moves away. "There."

There is so much Maka wants to say but instead she forces a grin, even though he can't see it. "Where to?"


	6. Part 2-3

His hallucinations never touch Maka.

Soul realizes this about a week after he meets Maka but he only starts to trust it another two weeks after that. His nightmares, the shadows and their whispers still show up, still wind themselves in his brain, still feeds into what his therapist calls acute social anxiety combined with major depression, though he'd stopped seeing her when his hallucinations started a little more than a year ago.

He almost wonders if Maka is a hallucination herself but Black Star and Stein see her and whenever their hands touch, her skin is warm and strangely reassuring while the shadows swarm over everything, bleeding cold that sinks to his bones. It was a surprise that she knew so little about Wes or him and apparently had no interest in researching Soul in the time since she began staying with him (he might be able to disappear from the world but no one hides from Google.)

It is that coupled by the fact that Maka was so sure she knew him when they first met that makes her an odd contradiction; the way she examines everyday things like his iPod or the coffeemaker in the kitchen is like she had never seen them before but she has an extensive knowledge of literature and history that rivals a college professor. She asks Soul questions about himself often but says his name like she's said it a thousand times before.

Maka _is_ an oddity but it's in the same way Soul is and he can't stop looking at her when she isn't looking at him.

Like now. From behind the kitchen counter, Soul watches Maka jam on her controller furiously, tongue sticking out in concentration, as the Princess Peach she chose to play on his Gamecube version of Super Smash Brothers is blasted off the edge of the arena by Black Star's Kirby while the Yoshi Kid plays as dances lazily around the computer's character.

Her necklace swings slightly as she leans forward, bent on revenge. Soul watches it dangle in the air; he is sure Maka is a stranger but sometimes she reminds him of a half-forgotten song-rhythm dancing in his fingertips but when it comes to the lyrics, he is lost.

"I win," Kid says calmly as the timer runs out.

Black Star, however, pays no attention, jabbing a finger at Maka. "I knocked you out more times this round."

"I took pity on you and that sorry pink blob," she shoots back from the couch.

"Kirby is a ninja and deserves your respect."

Kid knocks Black Star off the ledge. "The next round already started."

Maka looks over at the kitchen suddenly, too quickly for Soul to move his gaze away. "Aren't you going to come play?"

Soul doesn't glance to the living room ceiling fan, where a shadow has nested itself, but he hears its gentle rasping and he shakes his head. "Soon, I'm still getting drinks."

"You said that ten minutes ago," says Black Star without looking up from the screen.

"Well, I decided to be a good host and also get some snacks," he answers, going back to ignoring the shadow. Anyone coming over is rare while people coming over because he invited them is virtually nonexistent but it had been impossible to say no to Maka when Black Star and Kid offered to show her the finer points of gaming.

Snacks turn out to be a half-empty bag of salt and vinegar chips and a bag of just expired pretzels. Soul sniffs them carefully before bringing out setting them next to the lemonade he just made. It was a stroke of luck that he still had the lemonade mix to begin with-the refrigerator and pantry have been nothing but nearly barren shelves ever since cooking became too hard to manage. Even with Maka's arrival, he's been able to mostly deny the kitchen's existence thanks to the power of take-out.

Kid accepts the lemonade but eyes the overly rumpled bag of the chips and pretzels with a critical eye. "I'll pass."

"More for me," Black Star declares, claiming the bag of pretzels for himself.

Soul offers Maka the bag of chips as he takes a seat next to her. She fishes a chip out of the bag and examines it curiously.

"Another first?" he asks.

"I think so." She pops the chip in her mouth and nods, swallowing. "Definitely new."

"Good or bad new?"

She takes a handful of chips from the bag. "Good."

"I can't believe you've never had a potato chip," Black Star says through a mouthful of pretzels. "Aren't you from the twenty-first century?"

An oddly nervous look flashes across Maka's face. "Not quite."

"We have questions about Kid's age too," Soul tells her.

Kid looks up. "It is a genetic condition," he says indignantly.

Maka frowns. "What is?"

"The three white stripes running in his hair," Black Star answers over Kid's protests. "He looks like he's in Halloween mode all year long."

"That was before the dye Stein found me," hisses Kid. "Thank you for telling my darkest secret."

Black Star snorts. "If that's your darkest secret, is the runner-up that you wash non-washables?"

Kid sputters and as Soul opens his mouth to speak, the shadow from the ceiling drops onto the coffee table.

When it rises up, however, the sharp teeth of the demon gleam at him brightly. _Hello, Soul boy._

The demon rights his head, which had been twisted upside down. _Did you miss me?_

Soul looks back to the TV, heart pounding. Distantly, he is aware of his name being called.

 _That's not very nice._ The demon is on his shoulder, craning its head to meet Soul's eyes. _Did you miss me?_

The feeling of ink filling his throat keeps him from speaking. It's always been the snake that's followed him out of his nightmares, what does it mean that the demon is here, if he opens his mouth the ink will run out singing his flaws but if he doesn't then he'll drown, he'll drown, he's drown-

 _Souuuuuuuuul._

"GET OUT!"

A hand grabs his, the demon disappears and he breathes again.

Soul's fingers curl around the hand on instinct and he looks blankly at Maka and then Kid and Black Star, who gaze at him with concerned looks.

Black Star speaks first. "If you wanted to be first controller that badly, you just had to say so."

"I'm tired," Soul murmurs. The appearance of the demon makes it impossible to pretend that he cares about having witnesses to his increasingly pitiful mental state.

"It's getting late anyways," Kid says. He nudges Black Star when he says nothing.

He studies Soul for another second before shrugging. "It was getting boring crushing you two."

"I won ten of our matches," Kid points out as they rise. "You only won seven."

"I'll walk you out," Maka says, who squeezes Soul's hand once before gently pulling her hand out of his grip.

He stares at nothing as they file out of the living room, fingers automatically going to his necklace, but for once it does nothing to stop his heart from feeling like it's going to leap out of his chest.

Disappointment is a familiar taste on his tongue but it still has a rancid sting to it and when Maka enters the living room, he gets up without looking at her. "I'm going to bed."

She doesn't protest or make a comment on what happened, silent until he's halfway to his room. "Soul?"

He pauses before turning around. Maka is standing too far away to see her face but something about her voice and the way she holds herself rings too familiar

"Just remember-" Maka hesitates, taking a step forward. "The world hasn't ended yet."

Green, sunlight and the feeling of a body sitting close to him floods his vision before Soul's back hits the wall of the hallway.

Soul finds his voice. "Not yet at least."

* * *

Black Star gets pulled from deliveries the next day and pushed into the kitchen with Soul, the regular Sunday lull dragging take-out orders to a standstill.

The combination of Black Star and an oven is one that will eventually end in another call to the fire department so Soul sets him to kneading out the dough, which is a task that doesn't require nearly as much force as Black Star is using but it's better than catching sight of smoke issuing from the oven.

They work side by side though Black Star is unusually quiet, something Soul doesn't mind. Mortification had hit him in the face when he woke up, which was as much a surprise as any other feeling was these days and he supposes he should count himself lucky, but being unable to look Black Star or Kid in the eye isn't something he thinks he should congratulate himself on.

Soul's rolled out three pizzas when Black Star finally speaks. He plops another section of dough on Soul's side of the table. "How are you doing?"

He snorts. "Is that how Kid told you to talk to me?" It takes a moment to recognize the feeling twisting in his chest is annoyance. "Therapist sensitivity isn't a good look on you."

"Fine." Black Star lets the dough in his hands fall onto the table. "Dude, what the fuck."

"Yeah."

"You looked like that dude from The Shining," Black Star says, hitting his stride. "Minus the murder, obviously."

"Your bedside manner is flawless."

"I said without the murder." Black Star pauses, clearly weighing his words. "How long has this been going on?"

"The Shining or the other stuff?" Soul sets down the roller when Black Star glares at him. "A while," he says. "But you always knew I struggled with...stuff."

"Yeah," he concedes reluctantly. "But you look like you're ready to be kicked into the grave."

"I agree."

He knows Black Star is waiting for more but words are difficult when there's no point to them. The comfort and catharsis from someone realizing how messed up his head has become is absent, although there is a tiny part of him that begs him to feel it. But there is nothing, only frustration burning in his veins after months of numbness and fog, stabbing him with a sharpness that makes him want to rip his heart out because words can't save him, nothing _can_ save him and if this is all he's going to feel for the rest of his life, then maybe his parents had been right in sending him to that mental hospital after his meltdown.

He says none of this but Black Star is perceptive, even though he generally chooses not to show it. "You don't have to feel everything if all you can do is survive. Just make your pizzas and be here for the second."

Those words do reach that tiny part of Soul or at least he hopes they do. "That was almost wise."

Black Star grins. "My true greatness is too much for your mortal ears."

* * *

Soul is finishing the last of his batch of pizzas when Maka returns from the library. He's slightly surprised to see her-after last night, he half-expected her to be gone in the morning but she had been there, waiting on the couch for him so they could go for breakfast. Seeing Maka now makes his heart feel light for an instant and he puts aside the pizza he was working on to go talk to her, even though he can see her from the kitchen.

His newly resurging feelings are a pendulum that Soul can't keep up with nor understand.

He gestures to her back, straining with the number of books it carries. "The library search went well, I see."

"That depends on if I find what I'm looking for," she grunts as she hefts the backpack onto the counter.

From where he sits behind the counter, Stein looks up from the baby magazine he's reading, glasses flashing as he reads aloud the title of the book Maka holds. "The History and Details of Modern Witchcraft."

"It's light reading," she says.

Soul eyes her backpack. "Studying the occult is light reading?"

Pink burns brights in her cheeks though she holds her head high. "Are you mocking my reading taste?"

"Only questioning it."

She wrinkles her nose at him before turning to Stein. "How is Marie doing?"

"As well as a heavily pregnant woman can be in the middle of summer," Stein answers, going back to his magazine. "Her baby shower is next Sunday."

Maka frowns. "How are you going to bathe her baby when they haven't been born?"

"It's a party for pregnant people," Soul explains. "And something I'd already declined," he says, tossing a glare at Stein.

"Are you going to be the one to tell that to Marie?" Stein flips his page. "Bring Maka too."

Soul scowls. "I'm going to finish the pizzas."

Maka leans forward eagerly. "Can I help?"

"Um." Soul glances at Stein and Stein, who never cared much for professionalism even when he was a doctor, shrugs. "Make sure the pizzas don't get burnt."

The soft wonder on Maka's face as he demonstrates kneading and rolling out the dough makes it hard for Soul to concentrate on the pizza and he had to roll the dough another three times before it's right, though Maka doesn't seem to notice or mind.

He's explaining how to apply the sauce, cheese and toppings when Stein pops his head in the kitchen. "I'm leaving for the day and I gave Kid the afternoon off so you can close up when you're done with the last order."

Stein begins to leave when he pauses. "I'm telling Marie you RSVP'd by the way." He's gone before Soul can protest.

"He has a soft spot for you," Maka observes.

"I'm his godson so he's morally obligated to," Soul says. "He gave me this job so I wouldn't lose my head every other day from cooping up in my brother's apartment."

His words backhand him in the face as soon as they leave his mouth and he wants to swallow them back but they're in the air now. He waits for a comment or a question about last night, a joke at the very least, but Maka only looks from the pizza to him. "Can I try making a pizza?"

Maka does very well with her first pizza and she looks at Soul before moving onto her second. A strange look comes across her face, however, as she's measuring out the flour to make more dough and Soul opens his mouth to ask if she's alright when she sneezes suddenly.

Flour flies into the air and clings to Maka's face and hair. She turns to Soul, face in complete shock, as the flour settles and he's reminded of the time when Wes convinced him dipping himself in powdered sugar was a good idea.

His laugh is quiet and unfamiliar to his ears.

Maka's shock melts away and her lips part slightly like his laugh is something she hasn't heard in a long time as well.

Curiosity and something else quickens Soul's heartbeat and he edges closer, though he has no excuse to use if Maka questions it. Instead of saying anything, however, she pinches some flour onto her palm, leans in close and blows it at his face instead. "Fair consequence for laughing at me," she says casually.

The flour takes on a strange golden tint, shining like diamonds, as it swirls around Soul in whorls that resemble dancing figures.

But it's Maka that Soul can't take his eyes off. He's only been this close to her briefly, never long enough to see her fully. She has similar golden flecks laying in the green of her eyes and maybe it was in a dream but he's seen them before.

He knows her eyes; his gaze traces her face.

He knows Maka.


	7. Part 2-4

Maka is running out of time.

She snaps shut the book she was reading and shoves it into her backpack with a huff.

Stein looks over at her as he hands a customer their pizza. "Delving into the dark arts not as fun as you thought?"

"Not quite." She swallows her sigh. There are remnants of the rituals and traditions she used to practice with Mabaa but everything she has read is only mirrors and smoke, not fire. It's nothing that will help Soul, whose soul is steadily becoming darker with black blood with each passing day. He hasn't had another moment like he did a few days ago but with how quickly the black blood is taking over, it's only a matter of time.

Blair's words echo in her head. _We all become myths one day._ Maka had thought she understood what the familiar had meant but after traveling through the world for nearly a millennium and a half, she knows. The change had been subtle at first and it was only in the late 1600's that Maka had noticed but it rapidly became more pronounced and is more than apparent now-the acceptance of magic is only reserved for places like stage acts and movies like the ones Soul had shown her a few days ago. Insisting it exists in the real world earns nothing but sneers and disbelief as she had found out in Soul's eleventh life.

More than that, it's been a few lives since Maka's seen the traces of another witch's magic. The beasts and creatures of her original life have vanished as have any other sign that magic existed.

Quietly, a voice wonders if perhaps she is the only witch left, if all of the other witches had died without being able to reincarnate somehow. Maka silences the thought before it can take root. Two centuries had passed before Soul was reborn into his second life and she had never sought to find another witch in case she was stopped from following Soul so she doesn't know what happened in the aftermath of the war.

Her hands clench in her lap. It's impossible to imagine she's the only witch alive.

"You've gone somewhere."

Maka blinks and looks at Stein, who regards her over his book on children's developmental milestones with an impassive stare.

She ignores the hollow sadness settling in her throat, keeping her tone light. "I've gone to many places."

"So Soul has said," he answers. "There isn't much else he can say about you though."

Maka shifts guiltily in her seat. She's tried slipping in reminders of Soul's past life in their conversations whenever she can but about her life, she has remained vague to keep from knotting herself into a lie. "I'm not taking advantage of him."

"I'm not saying that and I don't think it either," Stein says mildly. "I've been watching, I can make my own conclusions."

She waits for him to continue but he says nothing. "What are you thinking then?"

"It's not for me to share specifics but it's been about a year since my godson retreated in himself," Stein answers, setting his book down. "You haven't known him long but I imagine you've seen what I mean."

It takes pressing her lips together to keep from correcting him but she nods.

"It's not something one person can fix nor something they should try to fix on their own." Stein's voice stays cool but his eyes flick to her books like he knows exactly what she's doing. "But it is good to see him finally poking his head out."

There's already a dull stinging in Maka's eyes and she has to stare down at the ground as it prods at her more forcefully. She can't deny there are moments Soul almost seems like himself again but she only has to look at his soul to know they're fleeting.

"I haven't done anything," she mumbles after a minute.

"Maybe," Stein acedes. "Maybe not. Depends what you're after."

She looks up, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"If you're looking to save someone, you're always going to end up disappointed." Stein opens up his book again. "You're either too late or too early."

"Too early?"

"Even when people know they've plummeted to rock-bottom, it takes them a minute lying there to decide they want to do something about it. In my case, it was about a decade," Stein answers, picking up a pen to make a note on his page. "The most you can do then is make sure they don't bury themselves there."

"And how do I do that?"

The drone of Soul's motorcycle as he returns to the shop fills the silence it takes for Stein to answer. "I would try asking them."

* * *

Maka holds a tissue to her nose, blood flowing from her nose with no signs of stopping, while Soul guides her to the bench running along the side of the basketball court. "Try tilting your head up a bit."

"I'm okay." She presses the tissue more firmly to her face as Soul peers into her eyes. "The basketball didn't hit me too hard."

"You got gobsmacked in the face." Liz's voice comes from behind her as she and Kid return with the first aid kit. "You're lucky you didn't get knocked out."

"I thought she was looking," Black Star says again as Kid pulls out a cold pack. It cracks as he bends it in half and hands it to Soul. "I wouldn't have thrown the ball if she wasn't."

"I was looking," Maka admits, wincing slightly when Soul pushes the pack below the bridge of her nose. "I just didn't move fast enough."

Taking the cold pack from Soul, she tentatively lowers the tissue, pressing it back when she feels a gush of blood. Maka glances at the group hovering over her. "I'm okay," she insists. "Go play."

Her words are enough to convince everyone except Soul, who takes a seat next to Maka instead. She frowns at him. "I'm fine."

"Even so." He hands her another tissue. "I wasn't in the mood for playing basketball anyways."

She takes the tissue, rolling her eyes. "You're stubborn."

A smile flickers on his face, gone before she can get a good look at it. "That's what I've been told."

"It still holds true." Maka glances away before he can see her disappointment. Hearing Soul's laugh after missing him lifetime after lifetime had filled her with a joy so sharp that it ached like grief. He hadn't done it again since Sunday and this is the first time she's seen him smile in the three weeks she's spent with him.

"My brother is coming back on Sunday."

Soul doesn't look at Maka as he speaks but she can see him peeking at her from the corner of his eye. "He got asked to stay for an extra tour but he wouldn't miss Marie's baby shower."

"Oh." She lowers the hand holding the tissue. A trickle of blood follows but she ignores it. "Do you want me to go today or tomorrow?"

Soul's eyes widen. "No, that wasn't what I met," he says quickly, turning to Maka. "Wes is laidback, I don't think he'll mind if you-"

He cuts himself off, running a hand through his hair. "Do you want to come to the party with me?"

* * *

Throughout dinner, Soul runs through several versions of explaining Maka to Wes when he comes home in two days, all of which go along the lines of _Hello brother, I invited a complete stranger to stay in your apartment while you were gone only I think I do know her despite never seeing her before in my entire life._

By the time they've finished, he's still come up with nothing. He finally looks up as he begins to clear their plates and finds Maka studying him. "Something wrong?"

"What were you thinking about?" she asks, tilting her head.

He shrugs. "Nothing." He notices her frown before she can hide it. "What?"

Maka hesitates before answering. "You stay stuck in your head," she says. "A lot." She gives a shrug of her own. "I just want you to know I'm here."

She's said as much as what Black Star said on Sunday but that's not where the sudden sense of deja vu is coming from. The image flutters on the edge of Soul's mind-he can feel it though he can't quite see it.

He goes back to clearing the table. "I know that," he says and he believes it.

"Good," she says, taking the plates from his hands. "Remember to act like you do."

The spark in her eyes is all too familiar, further proof of the fact that he _does_ know Maka. It was a notion he rejected when it first occurred to him on Sunday but maybe they'd met as kids and he'd just forgotten.

After their first meeting, he's hesitant to ask directly. Soul chews on his words as Maka washes the dishes and he dries them.

"Out of all of the places you've traveled," he asks as Maka hands him the last cup, "You've never visited here?"

Maka shakes her head. "The places I went to were more...distant."

"Not even as a child?"

A smile spreads across her lips. "Death City wasn't quite on the map then."

"I see." He asks another question to hide the strangeness of his first question. "Pick up any hobbies during your traveling?"

Maka dries her hands and leans against the counter. "Magic," she answers simply.

"Magic," he repeats and she nods. He lifts an eyebrow. "Mind showing me your favorite trick?" At the uncertainty on her face, he adds, "I even have a deck of cards, if you want."

She rolls her eyes at that. "Keep your cards."

He grins at her as she moves in front of him. "I'm expecting something impressive."

Maka stares at him before she answers, eyes moving across his face like she's trying to memorize it. "Close your eyes."

"And how do I know you won't cheat?"

She gives a small huff. "Hold out your hands."

He does that as well, palms facing skyward, and a jolt goes through him as Maka places her hands on his. "Satisfied?"

Soul swallows. "Possibly."

"Good." Maka taps her fingers against his palms, setting his skin buzzing. "Now open your eyes."

Tiny twinkling lights dance in a slow circle in Soul's kitchen, shining gold, then silver and back again. He spins around, trying to catch all of the lights, and as he does, the kitchen disappears and a forest takes its place instead.

When Soul looks back at Maka, however, they're in his kitchen and the lights have vanished. "Impressed?" she asks.

"How," is all he can say.

Maka grins. "Magic."

An illusion?" he guesses. He gazes around the kitchen again. "Right?"

Her smiles fades. "Right."

She's lying but he is exhausted suddenly, like he's ran a marathon though he's never even went out for a jog in his entire life. He meets Maka's eyes. "I think I'm going to go to bed early."

She shifts her weight from one foot to another but doesn't break their gaze. "Good night then."

"Good night." Soul doesn't move away, aware that her hands still rest in his.

For a long moment, they stare at each other. Then Maka moves forward, kissing his cheek.

She swerves around him and all but dashes out of the kitchen. "Good night!"

Soul's voice fails him as he stares after Maka but he's not sure he has words to begin with. Confused and mildly pleased best describes him as his fingers drift to where she kissed him.

Maka reminds him of what it could mean to live and he has no idea how he feels about it. Apathy and his nightmares still drowns his ability to feel in waves and if he had the choice to stop existing, he would probably take it but the slim chance that he wouldn't isn't something that's existed for a long time. And if he wouldn't, then was he as hopeless as he thought he was?

How much of the hell inside his head, a soft voice wonders quietly as Soul treks down the hallway to his room, is at his own insistence?

* * *

Maka's eyes fly open and she sits up, gasping.

Her heart pounds in her chest as her gaze darts around the room but she sees nothing but what should be there. Then a new wave of panic that isn't her own sweeps through Maka and she flings off her blankets.

Feeling the beat of a soul is normal for soul magic but she's rarely felt another person's emotions and, with Soul, she can't tell if it's because of her magic or because of his curse.

It's why she bursts in his room, half-expecting to see a ball of black blood where his bed is but instead, she sees only Soul, flailing wildly.

"Soul!" Calling his name does nothing nor does shaking his shoulder. Maka grabs his arm when he nearly smacks her in the face, her other hand going to his face. "Wake up!"

At her touch, Soul's legs stop kicking but he still struggles. It takes calling his name a few more times before his eyes open. There is a sheen of sweat on his forehead and when his gaze lands on Maka, he begins to ramble. "You were there, with me, and you were dying and I couldn't do an-"

"I'm not." Maka brushes his hair back, free hand moving to interlock with his. "It was a nightmare."

"It wasn't." Soul shakes his head a few times. His gaze is focused on something Maka can't see and she feels his heartbeat pulse in his fingertips as he tightens his hand around hers. "I know my nightmares."

"I've known you for a while," he says after a minute of silence. "For lives."

"Yes." Maka breathes out. It's what she's wanted to hear for so long but her happiness is bittersweet. "But you won't remember this in the morning."

He frowns. "Why?"

"You never remember anything after a nightmare," she says. "You told me once."

His frown deepens. "I did?"

Her heart twists. "A long time ago."

Soul grows pensive and then he looks at her again. "Will you stay?"

Being close to Soul has always been impossible to resist and she stands with some difficulty, hand still wrapped in his. "Scoot over."

Soul watches Maka with the sharp kind of alertness of someone who is desperately trying to stay awake as she slides next to him, pulling the blankets over herself. She closes her eyes but after a few minutes of still feeling his gaze on her face, she opens them again. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to stay awake so I'll remember you."

Her lips curve into a smile despite herself. "It's not going to work."

He yawns. "Still worth a try."

Sleep wins minutes later when Soul's eyes slide shut. The smile on Maka's face remains as she listens to his breathing even out into the slow and steady rhythm of sleep but the taste in her mouth is sour. She tucks her head in the crook of his shoulder and closes her eyes.

 _It'll be different,_ Maka promises him and herself as she squeezes his hand. _It's going to be different this time._

* * *

When Maka wakes up in the morning, she has her arm flung around Soul and her head is laying on chest. Soul is still asleep, his soulbeat muffled underneath the black blood but quiet and steady.

She tries to move away quietly but something around her neck pulls and she looks down to find her necklace tangled with Soul's. Biting back her laugh, she works her necklace free, Soul muttering inaudibly as Maka finally extracts herself from the bed.

Warmth blooms in her chest as she watches him. He had remembered her, incompletely and only for a minute, but he had remembered her.

The sound of a door creaking open makes her spin around.

Maka recognizes the man standing in the doorway, although he doesn't recognize her.

"Ah," Wes says. "Hello."


	8. Part 2-5

"There are worse ways to meet someone," Soul says as Maka stares into her orange juice. "It's not that bad."

The glare she gives him is morose and half-hearted. "Then why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm not laughing at you, I'm just in a good mood."

She snorts and goes back to staring at her juice. "If he had come in a minute earlier, he would have met me in your bed."

"See, that would have been much worse," he points out. A slight blush does burn in his face at the reminder that he had asked Maka to sleep in his bed while he had been stuck in his nightmare hangover. "Thank you for staying, by the way."

The mortification on Maka's face clears and she plays with the straw in her glass. "There's nothing to thank me for." She glances up at him. "Do you remember what we talked about?"

"Nightmares tend to be a black-out," he answers, shaking his head. He notices the way her expression falls. "Was it something important?"

Maka answers too quickly. "No, just small talk."

Wes enters the kitchen as Soul starts to speak. His hair is still damp from his shower and he is dressed much more formally than he usually dresses as he takes the chair between Soul and Maka.

He offers a bright smile to Maka, who looks like she wants a hole to open up and swallow her. "Now that we're all here, how about some breakfast?"

* * *

For all of the time that separated the Wes of her original life and the Wes that currently sits in front of Maka, he is remarkably the same. He adopts Maka in the length of time it takes for them to walk over to the cafe she and Soul eat at every morning and doesn't seem concerned in the slightest that Soul opened up his apartment to someone who, for him, is a complete stranger.

"I'm not surprised that Soul never told me a thing," he says, jabbing his fork into a piece of a pancake. "But for Black Star to not have said a word about you is truly amazing."

"I promised to take over his shifts whenever he wanted for the next three months," mutters Soul, who is now the one who gets to be mortified. "And if you have a question, there is the option of asking me first."

"There are many questions buried in your voicemail," Wes informs him lightly. "And you know patience isn't my strong suit when it comes to my little brother." To Maka, he says, "Though I can say I see why Soul has been ignoring me-"

"Wes!" Soul's face is a shade of red she has never seen before.

"I only speak the truth, little brother."

"Can the truth be a little more silent?"

His and Soul's banter is also remarkably the same, Maka observes as they go back and forth. Soul doesn't quite come alive like how he did back then but his soulbeat is much more stable in Wes' presence.

It stands in sharp contrast with the sliver of his soul that isn't covered by the black blood.

Maka's smile fades and she shivers in spite of the baking desert sun. She's mostly given up on finding anything useful but a half-formed plan has been floating around in her head ever since she saw Soul disappear into a ball of black blood in a past life.

There is no magical precedent for it, however, and if it fails, the chances of her dying are more than likely.

Maka's eyes trace Soul as Wes leans over to ruffle his hair in a gesture that is all too familiar. She wraps her arms around herself and suppresses another shiver.

She would have to hope it was enough.

* * *

"So when should I start planning for the wedding?" Wes asks after Maka goes to her room.

The look that Soul throws at Wes is ruined by the blush spreading from his neck to his face. He fidgets in his chair-he's not sure how he forgot the joy Wes takes in making him flustered but he dislikes the fact intensely. "We are friends."

"You are swimming in a river of denial and I am here to fish you out." Even after a day of roaming around Death City, Wes hair is still as flawless as it was in the morning and Soul decides he dislikes that too. "Overlooking the bed-sharing," Wes says as he ticks off a finger, "You've let her live with you for a month, which is saying something considering I can't even get a call back."

"She had nowhere to go-"

"Secondly," Wes continues like he was never interrupted. "You've started showing her how to ride your motorcycle."

"Is it my fault that she was curious?"

"No, but never offering to teach me is."

Soul crosses his arms. "Do you have a point in this or are you just listing out your grievances with me?"

"Possibly both," Wes answers. "Third," he says, wiggling three fingers at him, "You invited her to Marie's baby shower."

He has to think for a moment about that one and scowls when he comes up with nothing. "Are you done playing this game yet?"

"Not until I win." Wes' eyes gleam before he speaks again. "Maka told me about the kiss."

Soul gapes and then he narrows his eyes at Wes. "Did she tell you or did you force it out of her?"

"We were just talking and I had a few questions," Wes says in a tone that is far too innocent. His eyes soften. "She cares about you."

Wes leans in curiously as Soul's heart flips. "How do you feel about her?"

He hesitates. "Sometimes I feel like I've known her for a long time."

"That's adorable."

"It's just going to make her one more person I'll disappoint."

Frowns are rare for Wes but he wears one now. "Have you talked to her about _everything_?"

He shakes his head. "She's already seen enough."

"And she still hasn't left." Wes brightens. "That's a good sign."

Soul lifts his shoulder in a shrug. "Maybe."

Talking to Maka about his very public breakdown is unearthing a wound he's not sure he ever wants to see the light of day; confronting it means forcing himself to finally give his life some direction after floating aimlessly in the ruins of his life for a year.

Soul forces himself to ask the question that's been looming in his head all day. "How are they?"

"I haven't spoken to them since they tried to see me in Europe." Wes' mouth twists. "But they still call so fine, I assume."

Soul hadn't expected Wes' solidarity to run so deep that he'd ignore their parents after he rescued Soul from the psych ward but Wes is a far better brother than he deserved.

If Soul could be certain that his nightmares and hallucinations wouldn't follow him, he'd consider letting Wes take him to the therapist he mentions occasionally and telling Maka everything. But doing that is an inherent promise that'll he get better and he can't handle the responsibility of keeping that promise, being a person and continuing to rot from the inside out at the same time.

"Returning to the important things," Wes says, pulling Soul out of his thoughts. He faces him with a serious look on his face. "Do you want an indoor or outdoors wedding?"

* * *

When Soul wipes down the mirror after his shower the next morning, it is not his reflection looking back at him.

A version of himself does stare back at him, lifting his hand as Soul does and leaning close when he comes close to the mirror. The Soul in the mirror is washed out in a dull grey, from his skin to his clothes.

Except for his eyes. Those are a shiny, liquid black.

Soul stares at the not-Soul, fingers grazing against glass as he touches the mirror. "Who are you?"

At his words, the darkness in the not-Soul's eyes begins to bleed, flowing down in his face in rivulets. His mouth opens in a silent scream and more blood begins to trickle from his lips. It doesn't take long before he is completely covered in the black blood; the blood continues to flow, however, not dripping onto the ground but enveloping into a bubble that solidifies when he is fully consumed.

Soul watches in silence, paralyzed. He wants to move but when he does, it is back to the mirror. The ball of black blood disappears when he touches the mirror again, leaving him with his reflection.

But when he pulls his hand away, his fingertips are stained with inky black.

* * *

Clouds begin moving across the sky as Wes pulls up to the iron gates of Kid's manor, wind a dull roar as Wes rolls down his window and presses the button shaped like a doorbell on the intercom in front of the gates.

"This is fancy," he comments as the gates swing open. They pass by a row of hedges shaped like coffins as the car moves slowly onto the gravel driveway. "And eccentric but then again all rich people are."

"Kid's father used to run a mortuary," Soul says, ignoring the nervous thrumming of his heart.

"Did he?" Wes says interestedly. "I wonder if he took care of Grandpa when he died."

"I wouldn't ask." The ticking of his heart moves to Soul's hands and he holds them together to keep them from shaking. He feels like he's underwater, a side effect of the anxiety attack induced by seeing the not-Soul in the mirror, but something else lingers in his veins and hides at the back of his mind.

Something waiting for him.

Out of all the thoughts and ideas brought about by his nightmares and hallucinations, this one is by far the oddest, something that would make even Wes look at him strangely.

The feeling chafes like a rock in his shoe, harsher and sharper than it would be if he hadn't been slowly pulling himself out of the dregs of existential indifference.

Someone calls his name softly as the car comes to a stop in front of the valet waiting for them on the stairs leading up to the manor. It takes him too long to focus on Maka's face, grounding himself in the green of her eyes. Her voice sounds distant and muffled, even though she's sitting next to him. "Are you okay?"

Running isn't an option and withdrawing will turn him into an aloof, sullen fixture in the nearest corner of the room so he adopts the mask that he crafted during years of social gatherings. "I'm fine," he says, straightening. "Got lost in my thoughts for a moment."

He knows she doesn't believe but Soul doesn't give her the chance to respond, getting out of the car.

Kid is the one who greets them at the door of the manor, dressed in a formal suit.

"I feel underdressed," Wes whispers after Soul introduces them and Kid leads them through the manor to the ballroom.

Kid, whose sense of hearing is almost supernatural, speaks. "As the host, it is my duty to uphold the highest standards of hospitality."

Wes gives him a small salute. "Commendable."

Soul loses track of the conversation as they enter the ballroom. Everything is too bright and too sharp on his eyes, an uncomfortable heat crawling up the back of his neck. Whatever is lurking in his head keens as his gaze falls on the crowd across the room. He can already see the shadows peeling from the walls and he nearly runs out then and there but he is aware of Maka's eyes on him and he exhales shakily.

A hand slips into his and Maka looks up at him like she can read his thoughts. He wonders why she doesn't run screaming.

"I'm here, okay?"

There's more comfort in her touch but still he nods, holding tightly to her hand.

SEPARATE

After greeting Marie and Stein, Wes detaches himself from Soul and Maka to go greet friends he hasn't seen since he left to Europe.

Soul glances around as much as he can without looking on the shadows, which proves impossible since they've attached themselves to the guests. Their whispers join the buzz of the room and his nails bite into the hand that isn't holding Maka's. He looks back to Marie, who smiles warmly at Maka.

"It is good to finally meet you," she says, hand going to her stomach. "I would have gone down to the shop before but I melt whenever I go outside."

Maka offers Marie a slightly nervous smile of her own. "You're ready for the baby to be born then."

"A baby is a blessing but pregnancy is hell," answers Marie in a low voice as she smoothes the skirt of her sundress, which is a few shades darker than her blonde hair. "Frankly, I could have done without all of this," she says, tilting her head to the ballroom. "But Kid insisted and since the apartment is too small for more than us half of the time, it was hard to say no."

"I could have also done without seeing our former friends." She glances to where Stein stands a short distance away with the group of doctors who had abandoned him after he surrendered his license. Stein seems completely at ease with them, however, along with being the only person in the room wearing a party hat.

As she speaks, a shadow, floats down on Marie's shoulder, no bigger than a baby. The heat that burns under Soul's skin blazes hotter.

As one of his former tutors, Marie knows his tells better than even Stein and Soul interrupts, holding up the gift Wes had bought from Europe. "Where can I put this?"

Marie's hair bleeds black as she points across the room to a table already full of presents. Maka makes to follow him but he shakes his head, letting go of her hand. "You can talk, I'll just be a minute."

She frowns, but Marie is already moving to the next topic, and she turns back to her reluctantly.

His vision tilts as Soul walks across the room and he squeezes his eyes shut when he makes it to the table, though it does nothing to dull the shadows' whispers. It takes all of his concentration to find a place to set the gift on the table, though his work is ruined when a hand claps his shoulder and he sends several gifts falling to the ground.

"Didn't see that coming." Black Star's hair, slicked back but still bright blue, is the first thing Soul sees as he crouches down hastily and begins picking up gifts.

Soul snorts and pushes away the wave of dizziness that sweeps through him as he takes the gifts that Black Star hands him. "How are you liking the party?"

Black Star sniffs, standing up with the last gift that fell. "I thought Kid was stuffy but he's a breath of fresh air compared to everyone else. I can't wait to see what they do with the pizza."

"Probably ask for forks and knives," says Soul. "But I thought Stein was here all morning though."

Black Star waggles the shop keys in front of his face. "I earned back my oven rights," he answers proudly. "Made all the pizzas myself."

"I'll send my compliments to the chef when I try the pizza."

"Hello, Black Star." Wes appears out of nowhere, slinging an arm around Soul's shoulder. His smile is wide but strained. "Can I have a moment with my darling little brother?"

Dark spots appear in Soul's vision, the soft plink of a piano key echoing in his ear. He has no time to dwell on them as Wes steers him away.

He blinks, attempting to hold onto reality. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Wes says in a voice that is too casual. "I just saw some people I didn't want to talk to and thought I'd keep you company."

"Who?"

When Wes doesn't answer, he tries to pull away from his grasp. "Who?"

His brother stops them next to Marie and Maka, who are still chatting, sighing before he points towards the entrance of the ballroom.

Soul's head clears as his gaze falls on their parents.

SEPARATE

During dinner, Wes keeps up most of the talk at their table, which comprises of him, Soul and Maka.

"I feel personally robbed that we didn't get any games," he is saying when Soul tunes into the conversation. "It's the whole reason I came back from Europe."

Soul lets the fog in his head sweep over him again, continuing to shred a pepperoni from his pizza. He hadn't allowed himself to picture what his parents would do when they saw him again but nothing outdoes any expectations he might have had subconsciously.

They sit just within his line of vision but it takes much effort to turn his head away; both Stein and Wes had offered to ask him to leave but he had simply shrugged.

Maka, who sits beside him, speaks softly in his ear. "I don't know what happened," she says. "But it's okay to be angry."

His shoulders lift in another shrug. "I'm not mad," he tells her, neglecting to say he doesn't feel anything at all. He'd chalk it up to the apathy he's been wallowing in but it feels different-seeing his parents had awakened a realization in him, though he can't quite catch hold of it yet.

When toasts begin, his father is the first to volunteer, which doesn't surprise Soul. He still looks the same as Soul remembers him, which had been when the ambulance came for him. Neither he nor his mother had visited Soul during the week he had been stuck in the hospital.

It had confused him until the third day, when he realized they didn't mean to visit.

A song begins to play as his father starts to speak, static popping every so often as it was being played from a record player. Soul doesn't look up to see if anyone else hears it nor starts when the demon materializes onto the table, grinning as it snaps to the piece Soul was playing when the demon first appeared and he had subsequently lost his mind.

The thing that lies in the back of his mind stirs to life as his father finishes and the discordant smashing of keys brings the song to an abrupt close. He does wince a bit at the screams that follow, a scratch on a record that repeats over and over.

Soul is unusually calm as he rises from the table, however. "I need to get some fresh air."

The concern on Wes' face grows but after a glance to their parents, he nods. Soul doesn't look at Maka as he leaves, though he feels her gaze on him as he leaves the ballroom.

Clouds obscure the sinking sun as Soul waits for the valet to bring Wes' car to him, covering the world in an artificial gloom.

He hadn't been entirely hopeless, Soul now realizes. Admittedly, it was the purposeless hope that those already dead in life clung onto in self-preservation and he should have recognized it when the recital debacle happened so he could have saved himself and everyone around him the grief of trying to save something that was already long gone.

The car arrives and he gets in, easing down the driveway.

Instead, he had let Wes and Stein pick him up from the hole he'd fallen in and allowed Black Star to talk him into playing basketball with Kid, all of which has sustained that hope without Soul realizing it. When Maka had appeared in his life, he had stopped seeing his life in the past sense and started seeing it in the present and future.

He sees nothing now.

* * *

Maka waits until Soul leaves the room before getting up as well. "I-"

"You don't need an excuse," Wes says. There's exhaustion in his face that he doesn't show in Soul's presence. "I'd go with you but my mother might follow."

With a quick bob of her head, she hurries out of the ballroom, grateful she doesn't have to cast a sleeping spell on Wes. With the appearance of Soul's parents, the days she thought she had had changed into hours at best.

She keeps her composure until she is out of sight of any guests and then she runs, down the hallway, out of the manor. Jumping the front steps, she throws out her soul perception and feels the irregular beat of his soul, barely detectable underneath the black blood.

Fear wraps around her in an iron vice. Or maybe she had minutes.

Sprinting across the lawn, she ignores the yells of the valet and dodges the car of a late guest as she slips through the gates.

Maka's heartbeat pounds in her ears as she follows Soul down the road; Kid's manor is perched on a hill overlooking Death City, only accessible by a narrow road. She nearly trips halfway down the hill, barely catching herself.

She holds onto the fading point that is Soul as she runs, swallowing back the sobs caught in her throat.

As she rounds the bend that leads to the bottom of the hill, Maka catches sight of Wes' car, pulled over on the small shoulder of the road. Her breath comes out in short gasps as she reaches the car, the driver's door wide open and the rest of the car empty. Beyond is the bridge that leads into the city and it is there that comes the faint pulse of Soul's soulbeat. She spies the black blood bubbling up before she sees Soul, laying prone on the sidewalk.

 _Too far,_ her mind screams as she runs and the blood rises around Soul. _Too late, too far, too-_

Maka rips off her necklace and flings it at the sphere of black blood; the glass shatters against the blood and there is a flash of light as the last of Maka's magic rips the black blood open.

She dives into the rapidly closing hole, touching her forehead to Soul's as the black blood envelopes them.

SEPARATE

Soul wakes up sitting in an armchair, although he has no idea how he got there. The room with the floor of black and white tile and black walls is vaguely familiar and for a moment, he wonders if he's been sent back to the hospital again.

He frowns when the beginning notes of his recital song wind into the air, coming from an old record player in the far corner of the room that wasn't there when he first looked; the record catches when he sits up and grinds to a stop.

The silence that follows is heavy and full of static.

 _You're awake._

Soul jerks back with a yell as two rows of jagged teeth inches from his face grin at him.

 _No need for that._ The rest of the demon takes shape, grin turning into a sneer. _My fun is done with you for now._

"For now?"

 _Ah, you caught on early this time._ The demon kicks away, floating on its back. _You were a bit of a babbling mess in your last life._

Soul glares at the demon. "You're not real?"

The demon pauses, eyes glittering. _That sounds like a challenge._

His head feels like it's splitting as lives upon lives' worth of memories cascade down, not quite drowning him but enough that he wishes they would. He remembers and he _remembers._

The memories of his lives hit him like knives, nothing but the same endless memories of this life, hallucinations and nightmares using the monsters already inside his head to pick away at his sanity until he loses his mind or dies.

His breath hitches when he comes to his first life. He is alive in his first life, light interspersed between the dark until Medusa casts her curse and everything becomes black.

Soul's eyes fly open to find himself sprawled out on the floor.

The demon hovers a foot above his face. _Enjoy your trip down memory lane?_

His chest heaves as Soul catches his breath and he rubs his face. He remembers, remembers and understands. Understands Maka, who had been intertwined in his life since they were children. She followed him, through all his lives until she found him in this one.

He stands, moving until he is face to face with the demon. "What is this place?"

 _This is the space in between._ The demon shifts back into being only a set of grinning teeth. _You remember and then she takes it all back._

"She?"

A soft hiss and a pair of golden eyes glowing from the ceiling answers his question.

SEPARATE

The inside of Soul's soul is an endless hallway of doors.

Most doors are locked, some are broken and the few that open scream with memories of past lives that Maka shuts quickly. Amazingly, Maka's soul magic remains, though it doesn't do her any good since she's already in his soul. And without her other magic, the only thing she can do is try door after door and pray that she finds Soul behind one of them.

There's nothing but the sound of Maka's footsteps as she walks down the hallway. She tried calling Soul's name at first but that had made the doors filled with memories shriek so she stays quiet, listening hard.

The hallway seems to come more and more alive the longer that Maka searches for Soul. Her footsteps are still the only thing that echoes in the hallway but the silence in between her steps feel like bated breath now and the darkness that looms in front of her looks more like the open mouth of a behemoth from her original life.

She quickens her pace and the rattle of something ancient and large sounds from behind her and she breaks out into a run.

A loud hiss joins the rattling as she sprints down the hallway; she doesn't dare look behind her to see how close the monster is but by the sound of the hissing, it's only getting closer.

Every door that Maka dares to check is locked and as she runs, wild threads of thoughts and memory flash across her mind; the sharp ache of her lungs and noises of the snake snapping at her heels remind of her original life, of her and Soul running in the forest until-

Maka whirls around, heart drumming in her chest, and the sounds stop immediately.

She doubles over, hands on her knees, and sucks in breath after breath. "An illusion," she gasps, a strange laugh tumbling from her lips. "Only an illusion."

"Maka?"

A figure outlined in light stands in an open door at the end of the hallway. They call out again. "Maka?"

"Soul." Maka's eyes widen as she recognizes him. She straightens, walking towards him at first and then running.

His arms are spread wide as she reaches him, tears pricking her eyes as she hugs him tightly. "You remembered me."

"Finally," he admits, stepping back. He's still dressed in his clothes for the party, though there is an odd grey tint to his skin.

She assumes it's due to the black blood as Soul pulls her in and closes the door. The room they're in is dark, with a floor of black and white tiles and only a single armchair and record player for furniture.

Maka turns back to him. "What made you remember?"

"Nearly dying does the trick pretty well," he answers, taking a step towards her. "But you saved me."

She blushes. "I wouldn't call it that exactly."

He tilts his head. "What do you call it then?"

"Soul connection." She looks around the room as she speaks. The other rooms she had seen were full of windows, filled with memories, but this room holds none. "I wasn't sure it would work or it was even possible but it was the only thing I could think of."

Her gaze moves back to Soul. "I think the curse will break if I pull us out."

He raises an eyebrow. "And you think you can do that?"

She nods. "We have to be in the hallway, though." She gestures around the room. "This is only a pocket in your soul and won't lead anywhere."

A guilty look spreads across his face as Maka heads to the door. "It won't open."

She freezes. "Why?"

"I locked us in to keep us safe from whatever's out there," he explains.

Relief makes her laugh. "It's only an illusion," she says. "Nothing's out there so you can unlock the door."

Soul shakes his head. "It's the kind of lock that never unlocks."

"Okay," Maka says slowly, trying to keep her panic from growing. She spins back towards the door. "How about we break it down with the chair then?"

"Too strong."

"Then, how about a wall?"

"Even stronger."

Maka inhales and exhales deeply, closing her eyes as she sifts through her thoughts. Then, she turns back around, hands clenching into fists.

"You're not Soul."

He frowns. "What are you talking about?"

"Soul sacrificed himself for me," Maka spits, jabbing a finger at him. "He wouldn't trap me in a place I couldn't get out of."

For a beat, the not-Soul stares at her. Then, jet black eyes wink at her. _Well played._

* * *

The snake is not Medusa but her voice echoes in Soul's ears as the snake wraps around his chest. " _Another life, another hell."_

His breath is crushed from his lungs and Soul struggles to find air. " _How long do you think your soul will last?"_

Every coil she loops around him wrings out another life's worth of memories. His fingers grasp at thin air as Soul tries to hold onto them, to who he was in his first life, to Maka.

The thought of Maka calls up another memory, of light bursting as the black blood swallowed him. And Maka, pressing her forehead against his.

She had found him.

He writhes in the snake's hold and when that fails, he sinks his teeth as far as they will go into the snake's skin.

The snake drops him from where it had him wrapped on the ceiling and he lands on the floor on his; Soul sees stars but he pushes them away as he scrambles to his feet.

The door opens at his touch and he runs down the hallway it leads into, sounds of angry hissing following him. Soul doesn't have Maka's soul perception but this place is his soul and the hallway guides him, curving as he sprints until he reaches the end and a door flies open.

In front of him is Maka struggling with the demon while the hot breath of the snake laps at his ankles but all he can think of is reaching her, no matter what comes next. Her eyes meet as Soul dives into the room and she flings her arm out at the same time he reaches out.

Light erupts when their hands touch, their souls connecting.

The room gives a violent jolt and knocks Soul off his feet but he keeps his grip on Maka strong.

His mind swirls with a thousand memories that are not his own, of chasing, following, almost touching but never reaching. The constant cycle of loneliness, searching, loss, and hope over and over.

When the light fades, both the demon and the snake have vanished. A lightness fills the air and when Soul breathes in, the taste of the black blood has disappeared too.

"It's broken," Maka breathes out, looking up. "The curse is gone."

She leaps to her feet, tugging Soul up by the hand. "We can go now!"

Soul pulls away. "Wait."

Maka looks back at him, smile fading. "What is it?"

He hesitates. A curse doesn't excuse the hell in his head that existed inside of his head nor does it breaking mean he doesn't want to live any less but Soul has no idea how to explain that and with everything Maka has gone through, it's selfish to say.

Finally, he speaks, words barely above a breath. "I'm scared."

Maka doesn't move to immediately reassure him or dismiss his fear. She's quiet for a long time.

She takes his hand again. "I want you to choose," she says.

Soul frowns in confusion.

"I want _you_ to choose," she says again.

His eyes widen and he looks around his room, his soul. This room, like every room, is drowning in darkness. The idea that his soul could be anything more than broken is nearly impossible for him to imagine.

He sucks in a breath and looks at his hands. But what could he be without the weight of the curse dragging him down?

His hands close. And would whoever he was be worth it?

He thinks for what feels like an eternity and then he turns back to Maka, holding out a hand. "I want to try."

SEPARATE

The sudden light and rush of the wind disorients Maka as she pulls Soul and herself out, the remnants of the black blood staining the ground.

She squeezes her eyes shut from where she lays on the ground but when she feels the heartbeat underneath her hand, her eyes fly open.

Soul is looking at her already, looking at her in a way that she hasn't seen on his face in a long time.

Tears are streaking down her face as she scrambles close to him. "Soul, I-"

He leans forward as Maka goes to hug him, pressing a kiss against her lips and holding her close.

When they break apart, Soul smiles at her, fully and completely, and wipes away her tears. "Thank you for remembering me. For finding me."

Maka smiles back at him, speaking the words she's waited over a thousand years to say. "Thank you for saving me."


End file.
